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SHOUTY ALL CAPS and pass-agg full stops: how instant messaging has created a new English
There’s a lovely Ben Crair piece in the New Republic this morning, about how instant messaging and texts are changing our use of punctuation: it seems that a full stop at the end of a chat message can be seen as aggressive or final. So see you at home later is happy and friendly, while […]
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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/67757847410
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They can call it what they like. We know it’s the bedroom tax | Mind your language
Complex, confusing and impenetrable: no wonder ‘abolition of the spare room subsidy’ has not caught on If it is true that “whoever controls the language, controls the debate”, then the bedroom tax is doomed. Why? Because it is called the “bedroom tax” and not the “abolition of the spare room subsidy”. This week the expression […]
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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