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If you’re so upset about ‘literally’, why aren’t you fussing about ‘really’?
These people who use “really” to describe things that aren’t actually real! They’re the worst, aren’t they? As we all know, “really” is the adverbial form of the adjective “real”, and “real” means “actually existing, true”. “He really blew my socks off”: did he? Did he really? No he didn’t! He metaphorically or figuratively blew […]
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Close but Not Quite
It’s not enough to pick a word in the general vicinity of what we mean, or something that sounds about right. We should be choosing words precisely and using them with care in sentences. After Deadline http://ift.tt/1rdRKZW
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Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87
From the New York Times- Gabriel García Márquez, the Colombian novelist whose “One Hundred Years of Solitude” established him as a giant of 20th-century literature, died Thursday at his home in Mexico City. He was 87. His death was confirmed by Cristóbal Pera, his former editor at Random House. García Márquez, who received the Nobel […]
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How to say ‘vote for me’ in India 447 different ways | Mind your language
With 814m voters, 29 languages spoken by at least 1m people, and 447 mother tongues, India’s election is a test of linguistic as well as political skills British journalists: if you think you’ve got it tough trying to appeal to a global English-speaking audience, spare a thought for the candidates in this month’s Indian general […]
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The Case of Who v. Whom
We stumble regularly over who and whom, but this should not be an insurmountable problem. Mentally remove the attribution phrase and the grammar becomes painfully clear. After Deadline http://ift.tt/1g3D0We
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Speed-reading? Slow down a little … and leave time for laughter and tears | Mind your language
‘I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in 20 minutes. It involves Russia.’ As Woody Allen discovered, fast is not necessarily best During the last few weeks, my internet feeds have been inundated with links to Spritz, the new speed-reading application that lets you read a novel in less than 90 minutes. […]