Early medieval English burial contains 7th century woman’s necklace giving us picture of life among the first English speakers.

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Is “accent loss” a good thing or a bad thing?

Or is it even possible? The answer is complicated:
https://theconversation.com/do-accents-disappear-192548?fbclid=IwAR3EDIgIcS_eyd2AgoFV9azJx25lKmW_x-UsUdSGq0vnSiMSIycZTwnmNGM

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Has “ma’am” become a politically incorrect term?

And what about “sir”?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/12/us/maam-sir-polarizing-words-cec

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Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is “gaslighting.” Have you seen the movie?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/word-of-the-year

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Are you in goblin mode? Oxford University Press Dictionary word of the year 2022

https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/

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Babbling at your baby: is “parentese” a language universal?

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/parentese-is-truly-a-lingua-franca-finds-global-study/articleshow/93098906.cms

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New Oxford Dictionary of African American English: crowd sourced lexicography

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Legal corpus linguistics

Judges and lawyers are making use of linguistic corpora in court cases, but it’s not clear that they know how to use them correctly:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/7/23153218/legal-corpus-linguistics-mask-mandate-judges

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Another defense of “like”

Here is a thoughtful article about “like”:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/may/15/why-do-people-like-say-like-so-much-in-praise-of-an-underappreciated-word?CMP=share_btn_link

 

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Hesitation markers and fillers

This article makes the — pretty obvious — point that hesitation markers and “fillers” serve an important conversational purpose:

Filler Words and Floor Holders: The Sounds Our Thoughts Make

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