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When Spell-Check Can’t Help
Our latest roundup of homophone problems includes a number of very familiar entries. Sharp-eyed readers catch them; we should, too. After Deadline http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/when-spell-check-cant-help-20/
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It’s in its right place: how to use apostrophes – the winning haiku. | Mind your language
Some of the best entries from last week’s International Apostrophe Day haiku competition Here are my 10 favourite entries from last week’s competition for International Apostrophe Day. Entrants had to tweet an apostrophe-themed haiku. @Artellus worked out that the tagline #apostropheday had the right number of syllables: Just one haiku each? If so, don’t count […]
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Decline in French Language Skills Worry Academics in Madagascar
In the former French colony of Madagascar, the French language continues to play an important role in education, particularly at university level. French and Malagasy are the official languages in the Indian Ocean Island.
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If you can’t use an apostrophe, you don’t know your shit | Mind your language
Greengrocers – and big supermarkets – may struggle to tame the ‘apostrofly’, but it’s not actually that hard I used to think “weer” in the song Mama Weer All Crazee Now was Slade’s idiosyncratic spelling of “were”, in Black Country dialect (which I am allowed to make fun of because my family originally came from […]
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Nous twitterons: The French language is getting battered by social media. (The Economist)
Aug 10th 2013 | PARIS | AURELIE FILIPPETTI, the French minister for culture, had to retract a tweet this week after making a glaring spelling mistake. As she is the official guardian of the French language, this was more than a bit embarrassing. Twitter’s spontaneity invites carelessness; and the minister duly blamed a sloppy aide. But for linguistic […]
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Why do we make mistakes? Blame your brain, the original autocorrecter | Mind your language
A normal functioning human sails blithely past errors in a text while understanding perfectly what it means. We see what it’s convenient to see Does Siri make us lazy? Does Facebook make us lonely? Does Twitter make us stupid? Will Google Glass make twitching, distracted Glassholes of us all? If you’ve read a magazine, listened […]