24 January 2009
Mark Peters over at Good has a short interview with David Crystal on the subject of texting. It’s well worth your time.
GOOD Q&A: The Linguists
16 January 2009
Also from Good, a short interview with linguists K. David Harrison and Gregory Anderson, who are featured in the documentary The Linguists, about the efforts to document dying languages.
Frak Attack! The Lingo of Battlestar Galactica
16 January 2009
The best show currently on television is returning to the screen tonight for its final half-season. Mark Peters over at Good has a column on the language of Battlestar Galactica, including its all-purpose swear-word, frak.
How Dictionaries Shape the Language
15 January 2009
Barbara Wallraff over at theatlantic.com comments on the word hinky and why it is or isn’t in various dictionaries. This is pretty much old hat for most of us here at wordorigins.org, but her comment at the end about Webster’s New World Dictionary as the standard for the Associated Press is notable.
Orwell's Liar
10 January 2009
David Beaver over at Language Log posts a much needed criticism of Orwell’s Politics and the English Language, an essay, which along with Strunk and White, is probably responsible for more prescriptivist crap than any other source. Orwell makes some valid points in the essay about clarity in writing, especially politically writing, but, as Beaver points out, his six rules for good English are inconsistent, illogical, and so inane that even Orwell ignores them.
