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Mandela and me: how our chance encounter influenced my research
Bumping into Mandela on her return to South Africa inspired expat academic Candi Miller to make a difference With the death of Nelson Mandela – Madiba to South Africans – I’ve wondered if a chance encounter with him almost 20 years ago wasn’t in some way responsible for my academic career and research interest. I […]
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Does speaking German change how I see social relationships?
LAST week’s column was about the languages that have both formal and informal pronouns for you. It seems that, at least in the European languages, the informal pronouns are ascendant. But they are a far from gone, and their persistence brings to mind another topic. That is the idea that languages shape thought in profound […]
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The Slang Patrol
Slang and colloquialisms have their place, for special effect or to deliberately convey an informal, conversational tone. But otherwise, they can seem trite or hackneyed, and can undercut the serious and literate tone we seek. After Deadline http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/the-slang-patrol-2/
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Open door: The style guide editor on… peer pressure and using people’s proper names
Our policy on referring to lords and ladies is impossible to apply consistently and credibly. So, should we drop titles altogether? Which of these (hypothetical, I emphasise) sentences do you think works better? Baron Hall of Birkenhead has invited The Lord Lloyd-Webber, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho and Baron Foster of Thames Bank to star in […]
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Men are increasingly rising in pitch at the end of their sentences
More men speaking in girls’ ‘dialect’, study shows By Melissa Hogenboom Science reporter, BBC News 6 December 2013 Last updated at 01:37
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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/69175957208