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1 2 3 4 5 Displaying 15-21 of 45 Articles
Thanks to Chatroulette, the ridiculously popular website that pairs random strangers around the world for webcam conversations, we have a new verb in English: to next. Two language-related blogs explain what it means. Continue reading...
A new usage of the word blog is emerging, and not everyone is happy about it. As Grant Barrett writes on the blog of the Copyediting newsletter, for some people blog can now mean "a single, dated, first-person post on a web site" rather than "an entire site of such posts." But according to an informal survey, most copy editors aren't on board with the new meaning. Continue reading...
Earlier this month on Blog Excerpts we featured Alexandra D'Arcy's OUPblog post, "Ode to a Prescriptivist," which drew a sharp dichotomy between linguistic descriptivism and prescriptivism (personified by D'Arcy and her stern grandmother, respectively). D'Arcy's post inspired Stan Carey, a professional editor from Ireland, to write a typically thoughtful post on his blog, Sentence First. Continue reading...
On OUPblog, the official blog of Oxford University Press, sociolinguist Alexandra D'Arcy has kicked off a new column by penning an ode to her grandmother, "a firm advocate of correctness" who "in the proud tradition of language purists... found anything other than 'the standard' objectionable." Continue reading...

Blog Excerpts

The 800-Word Myth

Have you heard that "the average teenager uses just 800 words in daily communication"? Despite being widely reported in the media, this factoid simply isn't true. Linguist David Crystal debunks the myth here.

Blog Excerpts

Gift Words

Just in time for the holidays, Visual Thesaurus contributor Mark Peters has rounded up a selection of gift-related words and phrases for his latest "Wordtastic" column in Good Magazine — covering everything from Seinfeldian "regifting" to "shopper's block." Read it here.

Blog Excerpts

How We Got to "Hello"

Have you ever wondered why we say "hello" when we answer the telephone? Nate Barksdale of the think tank Cardus takes a long look at the history of the greeting here.

1 2 3 4 5 Displaying 15-21 of 45 Articles

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