Monthly Archives: December 2016

How difficult is it to acquire an accent or a dialect? How conscious are we that we are doing so? This article examines these questions in some depth. http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/are-semester-abroad-accents-real-or-fake?utm_source=article&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sendtofriend

There is a growing consensus about the benefits for our brains of knowing more than one language. It can increase attention, reading skills, school performance and much more: http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/11/29/497943749/6-potential-brain-benefits-of-bilingual-education?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20161214&utm_campaign=npr_email_a_friend&utm_term=storyshare

The awkwardness of forming the possessive of “you guys” has led to a new possessive form: http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/11/your-guys-is-american-english-at-it-roughspun-best.html?mid=emailshare_scienceofus

http://allthingslinguistic.com/post/135936899661/rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer-in-anglo-saxon

This is an interesting list of words, such as dust ‘to apply a dusting of’ or ‘to remove dust”: http://mentalfloss.com/article/57032/25-words-are-their-own-opposites

Here’s a good definition of “retronym” from the Oxford dictionary blog: http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2016/09/retronyms/

Much has been written about like in Present-day English. Here is a popular, but pretty accurate account by John McWhorter from The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/the-evolution-of-like/507614/?utm_source=eb

As this article articulates, definitions of the terms “indigenous” and “immigrant” languages aren’t very clear: http://www.languageonthemove.com/getting-past-the-indigenous-vs-immigrant-language-debate/