Monthly Archives: September 2012

In this recent New York Times article, Robert Lane Greene, author of You are What you Speak, takes the descriptivist side, and Bryan A. Garner, author of Garner’s Modern American Usage, takes the prescriptivist side. In the course of the long exchange, they … Continue reading →

watch?v=E8czs8v6PuI

Professor Avuncular Feldspar (Ari Hoptman of Copacabana fame – see earlier post) has three videos explaining the First Sound change: Part 3 may be a bit too detailed for our purposes.

The Open University in the UK has produced a funny video on the history of English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3r9bOkYW9s&list=PL0B3F3F2E7BCC0F51&index=1&feature=plpp_video Caution: There’s a bit of language which might offend some.

Presenters will share experiences and speak about the hard work required in revitalizing Native languages. Abstracts of the talks are available under the above link.

Archeological evidence in Denmark provides convincing evidence that the Germanic tribes fought fiercely: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/science/warrior-remains-2000-years-old-found-in-denmark.html?_r=1  

In this insightful article from the New York Times, Geneva Smitherman and H. Samy Alim discuss Obama’s use of a range of dialects: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/opinion/sunday/obama-and-the-racial-politics-of-american-english.html?_r=1&emc=eta1 Be sure to click on the link to Obama’s visit Ben’s Chili Bowl and listen to … Continue reading →

The New York Times has done an analysis of the most frequent words used at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. This is nicely represented graphically in the linked article: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/06/us/politics/convention-word-counts.html?emc=eta1 It shows you that words matter!

Thanks to Ari Hoptman for making syntax fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB1m4w9j79o  

Merriam-Webster editors have produced a variety of short YouTube segments on questions of English usage (“flat adverbs”, “who” vs. “whom”, etc.) and vocabulary. (“gridiron”, “cop”, “literally”, etc.). They’re quite well done. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UULGx1Xl1Nd1iJ37dWeNnp-A&feature=plcp