A nice lesson on usage, language change, dialects, and more!
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- Language is alive and…evolving! (termcoord.wordpress.com)
- The Power of Babel: Dialects are all there is (stancarey.wordpress.com)
A nice lesson on usage, language change, dialects, and more!
I’m working on a post about taboo words (that means swearing or profanity) that’s not ready for prime time — and recovering from the flu. In the meantime, I highly recommend today’s post over at Motivated Grammar. Gabe’s point is that, when people don’t actually understand how language works, they see decline and deterioration in language different…
Know your audience! The most common platitude about workplace writing. Well . . . duh . . . who could argue with that? It certainly doesn’t describe what pros have learned. What amateurs need is GUIDANCE for getting to know the right things about their readers. My guidance, based on a chapter new to the third edition of Revising Professional Writing, focuses…
I’m feeling a little punch-drunk after a 36-hour mock accreditation marathon so thought I’d share something that fits my mood. The Onion recently published a great little piece about gang violence and the Oxford comma. Enjoy! Related articles The Best Shots Fired in the Oxford Comma Wars (mentalfloss.com) A Light-Hearted Lesson on the Oxford Comma…
Most of the world has heard that CNN and Fox News inaccurately reported the US Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Health Care Act last Thursday. Later that day, here’s how Ellen Killoran, a reporter for the International Business Times, explained their error: The egregious error does not appear to be the result of the news…
About the grammar quiz in the WSJ article
A less-than-polite response to the Wall Street Journal’s grammar quiz from the linguist behind Real Grammar.
It’s the usual mish-mash of zombie rules, shibboleths and prejudices. Half of the questions are not about grammar at all, but about spelling and punctuation. Two fail to acknowledge a difference between British and American English usage. Three are based on false ideas about which words can introduce relative clauses. And, inevitably, there are the misguided questions about between versus among, less versus fewer and I in object position or following a preposition.
Check out today’s US Navy ends dependence on capitalised communications from BBC News. Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London, told the BBC, The US Navy has made up its mind that not everything is a crisis and some messages are just normal. The change appears to mean the organization has…
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