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‘Gif’, with a hard G, is perfectly correct, and it doesn’t matter what people said in 1987
Stupid because-I-say-so prescriptivism in The Atlantic and The New York Times over the word “Gif”. “The war is won, even if the battle ensues. GIF is pronounced with a soft G, and if you think otherwise, you are wrong,” sniffs The Atlantic, its nose hoisted well into the air. The NYT agrees: “A GIF, pronounced […]
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Universities should ditch the talk of investing in the future | Simon Jenkins
Instead of research academics need to focus on giving students what they want for their money: that is, a well-rounded education Money talks. After two years of tuition fees at £7,000-£9,000 universities are apparently rolling in cash, and their students are demanding value for it. Universities are expected to deliver not just education but jobs. […]
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Red Pencils Ready?
For this week’s roundup of grammar, style and other editing missteps, I turn once again to the popular After Deadline Quiz. Try to identify at least one problem in each of the passages. After Deadline http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/red-pencils-ready-9/
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New issue of the Linguistics and Education Bulletin
New issue of the Linguistics and Education Bulletin via Tumblr http://jesusromerotrillo.tumblr.com/post/64389947057
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Sexist language: it’s every man for him or herself | Mind your language
The author of Winnie-the-Pooh thought ‘he or she’ should be replaced by ‘heesh’, but there’s nothing wrong with singular ‘they’ As long ago as 1911, the American writer Ambrose Bierce, in his satirical The Devil’s Dictionary, objected to Miss – “a title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the […]
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A million reasons to improve teacher quality (The Economist)
Education A million reasons to improve teacher quality Oct 16th 2013, 17:07 by R.A. | LONDON THIS week’s Free exchange column looks at a fascinating bit of statistical work on the value of a good teacher. Economists Raj Chetty, John Friedman, and Jonah Rockoff obtained a massive data set from a large, urban school system, which covered 2.5m […]