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When is it OK to drop the F-bomb in front of your kids?
“When Granny gets annoyed, she says ‘fiddle’,” my six-year-old daughter remarked the other day. “And when Mummy gets annoyed, she says ‘rats’.” “What about when Daddy gets annoyed?” said my wife, giving me a sidelong glance. “What Daddy gets annoyed, he says f–.” OK, OK, but is this a problem? Davina Wakelin, headteacher of Meeching […]
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Johnson: Don’t fear the Tweeter
PUBLIC discussions about language often include worried questions about the role of technology on “kids these days”. After observing the rampant rise of texting, e-chatting and whatnot, the questioner will then wonder whether the youths of today are forgetting how to write properly. Johnson has seen a lot of moral panic around this concern, but […]
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The volume ‘Research Trends in Intercultural Pragmatics’ (edited by Kecskes & Romero-Trillo) is published
For a full description of the volume
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International Style
By coincidence, the timing of our stylebook revisions dovetailed with the rebranding of our global editions as The International New York Times. As part of that integration, our colleagues in Paris, London and Hong Kong have made a Herculean effort to adopt our stylebook and largely eliminate the variations and exceptions The Herald Tribune had […]
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The problem with ‘selfies’ isn’t narcissism: it’s that all photos now look the same
When did this fashion start, by the way, for a “word of the year”? The OED has just made “selfie” the word of 2013. What won in, say, 1840; what would that teach us about Britain? The Penny Post was launched, so was “Stamp” all the rage? The great novelist Fanny Burney died, so maybe– […]
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Gay now means rubbish. Get over it
Young people, eh? They’re always changing the meaning of words. When I was a youngster, “sick” meant ill; now it means good. “Ill” also means good, or more accurately doubly good – something is “ill” if it’s really cool. “Mad” is now used to mean lots – if someone has “mad style” that means they […]