Pullum nods

[gareth_rees]

I am a fan of Language Log’s Geoffrey K. Pullum, especially when he uses linguistics to demolish grammatical superstitions (for example, Monday’s excellent analysis of which and that).

Today’s article discusses restrictions on word-initial consonant sequences in English. A fine article, but much more interesting if you know that it had an earlier

Comments

[3c66b]

You're drawing attention to the fact that he hasn't noticed that she's singing 'rien de rien' the first time? This totally passed me by when I read the two articles because my memory of the song is rusty. I'm surprised he hasn't corrected the original article though: you'd think someone would have pointed the mistake out by now.

[gareth_rees]

Yes, the first line is "Non, rien de rien" and I'm just amused at the extent to which Pullum has completely misheard it.

I expect several people pointed out the mistake because the original article has been removed from the Language Log catalog: you can't see it at the main page or the RSS feed any more.