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People Are Trolling the Shit Out of Donald Trump After His St. Patrick's Day Tweet

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Published On :: Mon, 19 Aug 2019 19:00:00 -0700

Donald Trump's kept it pretty low key on Twitter in recent days. That didn't stop him from penning a little St. Paddy's Day sentiment though. If only he'd spell checked before sending it off though. Then again, would we expect anything less than this from the guy with a wide-reaching, well-developed reputation already for spelling shit in his own language incorrectly?

Yeah, yeah, we know. Here are some Trump Memes to smooth it over.


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Donald Trump Got Hilariously Trolled Over His Time 'Person Of The Year' Tweet

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Published On :: Tue, 20 Aug 2019 19:00:00 -0700

Say what you will about the President, but there's no denying that his Twitter habits have given us hours of entertainment. His latest Twitter escapade was regarding Time Magazine's 'Person of the Year' issue. On Saturday  President Trump tweeted "Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named "Man (Person) of the Year," like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!" Parodies from comedians such as Julia Louis Dreyfuss and Billy Eichner began pouring in, along with riffs on New Yorker cartoons. Here are some of our favorites. 

And on a side note, here are some of our favorite tremendous Trump memes that are nearly unbelievable.


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Trump's 'TREASON?' Tweet Is Inspiring Some Pretty Clever Parodies

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Published On :: Fri, 30 Aug 2019 19:00:00 -0700

Recently Donald Trump tweeted the word "TREASON?" in light of the New York Times op ed that was published on Wednesday. The article was supposedly written by someone within the Trump Administration, calling themselves part of the "resistance." 

After Trump's "treason" tweet, people on Twitter began making their own amusing parodies, which you can read below!


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#11: Halloween

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Published On :: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 17:00:00 +0000


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#75: 24 Weeks

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Published On :: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 17:00:00 +0000


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#150: Every Week for Ten Years

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Published On :: Sun, 04 May 2008 16:00:00 +0000


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#206: Tweetity Tweet JK Rowling

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Published On :: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:00:00 +0000


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Haven't had a fresh hamster in weeks

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Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 08:00:00 -0700


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As today’s homes burn faster than ever, this year’s Fire Prevention Week campaign presents critical home escape planning and practice messages

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Published On :: Wed, 27 Sep 2017 12:37:24 PDT

Knowing that today’s homes burn faster than ever, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) announced “Every Second Counts: Plan Two Ways Out” as the official theme for this year’s Fire Prevention Week campaign, October 8-14, 2017. Experts say you may have as little as two minutes (or even less) to safely escape a typical home fire from the time the smoke alarm sounds.


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Stay safe this Halloween with NFPA’s fire safety tips

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Published On :: Thu, 19 Oct 2017 12:37:24 PDT

Halloween is creeping up on us. The rush is on to find the perfect pumpkin, the spookiest costume, and the best candy for trick-or-treaters. However, along with all this excitement comes potential fire hazards related to seasonal decor and costumes. Fortunately, fire risks can be avoided by following the National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA) Halloween safety precautions.


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Iffy's Online Store 20% Off Everything, Golden Week Sale, Ends 5/6

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Published On :: Fri, 24 Apr 2020 20:19:06 +0000

"Happy Golden Week! Receive 20% off all items added to your cart until 5/6!!
Free shipping on all US orders over $57.99!"

 

https://www.iffysonlinestore.com/

 

Limited Editions included.

 

A couple Switch recommendations (prices before discount),

 

Moero Chronicle Hyper Standard Edition $29.99

 

Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force Standard Edition $39.99

 

Enjoy.


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High Vibe Honey: Week Of 23rd February 2020 + What To Do If You Feel Lonely!

By galadarling.com
Published On :: Sun, 23 Feb 2020 17:24:57 +0000

Do you struggle with feeling lonely or alone? Hilariously, you’re not alone! Loneliness is an epidemic, and in fact, it’s the number one public health crisis. We are increasingly disconnected from one another, while at the same time we have more opportunities to connect than ever. So if you find it hard to make friends, […]

The post High Vibe Honey: Week Of 23rd February 2020 + What To Do If You Feel Lonely! appeared first on Gala Darling.


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High Vibe Honey: Week Of 29th March 2020 + I Am My Own Hero!

By galadarling.com
Published On :: Tue, 31 Mar 2020 23:26:46 +0000

In this wild time, you might be looking around and noticing that people are losing their collective shit! In this climate, it is more important than ever to truly use your tools, cut off negativity, and feed your mind with material that makes you feel STRONG, rather than fearful. This is your moment to become […]

The post High Vibe Honey: Week Of 29th March 2020 + I Am My Own Hero! appeared first on Gala Darling.


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This Week On Xbox: May 08, 2020

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Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 19:08:00 +0000

Here we go…the latest episode of This Week On Xbox. Remember, you can watch This Week On Xbox from the Community section of the Xbox One dashboard in Canada, the UK and the US or watch it on the Xbox YouTube channel (This Week on Xbox Playlist). Leave a comment below or hit me up on Twitter and let me know […]


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NFPA and HFSC Take Home Fire Sprinkler Week 2020 Virtual; Help Us Fill the Digital World with Life Safety Messages May 17-23

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Published On :: 2020-04-20T17:40:00Z

As the world continues to deal with the ongoing demands of COVID-19, NFPA and the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition (HFSC) have cancelled live events that week in favor of a North America wide virtual effort to show the value of home fire sprinklers from May


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  • fire sprinkler initiative
  • home fire sprinklers
  • hfsc
  • fire sprinkler advocacy
  • home fire sprinkler week
  • covid-19
  • coronavirus
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Book week 2019: the prologue

By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com
Published On :: Sun, 24 Nov 2019 22:25:00 +0000

My new year's resolution for 2019 was: Finish the books I start. 

Now, it must be said, I don't read enough books. I do a lot of reading for research, which does not usually involve reading books from cover to cover. (It involves reading journal articles, reading chapters, using the indices of books to find the bits I need.) Since so much of my working life is reading (including multiple books' worth of student writing each term), after work I tend to do other things. But I still want to be reading books, because there are so many good books out there and I have great respect for the writers of books and the books they write.

I find it's very easy to start (reading) books. Rarely do I start reading a book and then lose interest in it. I have every intention and desire to finish most books that I start. But then some other book comes along and I just want to start that one too.

(It must be said here that these days I mostly read non-fiction—and it's relatively easy to leave non-fiction unfinished. If there is a story to a non-fiction book, I generally know how the story ends, so it doesn't have that page-turner vibe that fiction can have.)

At the start of 2019, there were four books that I had started months before, and had been really enjoying, yet instead of finishing them, I started other books. But thanks to my resolution, they are finished. Yay! 

So that was going well. Until I started starting books again. As of last week, I had seven books on the go (not counting a couple that made me say "Life's too short to spend it on this sub-par book"). And thanks to what I'm about to do, I will probably soon have 12 unfinished books heading into the LAST MONTH of 2019. So: made a resolution to reduce the number of unfinished books I have, and I am ending the year with THREE TIMES AS MANY unfinished books. What a failure!

But the reason I'm starting even more books is that people send me books. Publishers send me books. I get a lot of books. They send me the books because I have a blog and they want me to help publici{s/z}e the books. I like getting the books, and I want to help authors of good books. And it helps them if I tell you about the books in a timely way.

So this week, I am going to write about some of the books I've been sent this year and which I may not have read from cover to cover. For each book, I plan to read at least two chapters before telling you about it. So, I'm going to have a feel for the book, which I can tell you about, even if I haven't read the whole book.

Why do this now? Two reasons:
  1. I can assuage my guilt about not writing about these books sooner by pretending that I was waiting to give you a seasonal list of books that would make great gifts for the holiday season!
  2. I have the time.
I have the time because my union is about to go on strike for eight days. During this time, I am not engaging in the activities that the university pays me for. (And indeed, I will not be paid by the university for those days.) So, I'm catching up on things I want/like to do that are not within my job description. And apparently starting books and not finishing them is one of the things I like to do best.

I'm only going to tell you about books I like. I'm channel(l)ing my mother: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." I'm also listening to the adage "There's no such thing as bad publicity." I've decided not to give any publicity to sub-par books. I could be scathing about them (and witty—scathing and witty go hand-in-hand). And that might be a lot of fun. But I'd just rather not shine my light on sub-par books, since that takes space and attention away from the good books. 

Some of the books I'll write about are by people I like. It's not that I know them well, just that I've had enough interactions with them to know we're on the same wavelength—so it's not quite nepotism (just tribalism?). And I'm going to try my best to have five posts for five days, but life happens and I might have to interpret "week" very loosely.

So: stay tuned, and we'll get this book week going.

Oh, and: I'm taking nominations for US-to-UK and UK-to-US Words of the Year. Are there any US-to-UK or UK-to-US borrowings that are particularly 2019-ish? They don't have to have first come to the other country this year, but they should have had particular attention or relevance in the other country this year. Please nominate them in the comments below.


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Book week 2019: Jane Setter's Your Voice Speaks Volumes

By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com
Published On :: Mon, 25 Nov 2019 17:28:00 +0000

Welcome to the first review post of Book Week 2019. See the intro to Book Week 2019 to understand more about what I'm doing this week.

I'm starting with the most recent book in the ol' pile of books from publishers:

Your voice speaks volumes
it's not what you say, but how you say it

by Jane Setter
Oxford University Press, 2019


Jane is Professor of Phonetics at the University of Reading (UK) and a recipient of the prestigious National Teaching Fellowship. (As you can see, we are on a first-name basis, as we travel some of the same Public Linguist circles.) I mention the teaching fellowship because it is relevant: Jane is excellent at making linguistics, particularly phonetics, crystal clear for the uninitiated. She uses that talent to great effect in her first book for the general public. 

This book speaks squarely to a general British audience — and to those who want to know more about English-language issues and attitudes in this country. I'm writing this on a day when my social media feed has given me (a) the story of a man wrongly arrested for public drunkenness in Brighton—because the police had mistaken his Liverpool accent for slurring and (b) a misreading of the relevance of accent in the US (as a means to say something about how accents are read in the UK). But I'd have at least two such things to tell you about on any other day when I might have written this post. Accents make the news in Britain because they matter inordinately. Differences that might not be discernible to those from other countries are imbued with layers and layers of meaning and subjected to piles and piles of prejudice. 

As I warned in the intro to Book Week, I have not been able to read the whole book. But I was able to get through much more than I thought I'd be able to in a single evening (four of the seven chapters: 1, 2, 3, 7). Part of my speed was because I could skim the bits that were explaining linguistic facts that I already knew. (That's not to say that the facts here are too basic. I've just had a helluva lotta linguistics education.) But it is a zippy read throughout. Setter uses personal and celebrity stories to demonstrate the everyday relevance of the phonetic and sociolinguistic facts that she's explaining. (Hey look, I seem to revert to last-name basis when I'm reviewing someone's book.) 

The chapters I haven't yet read are those that I'd probably learn the most from: on the use of linguistics in forensic investigations, on voices in performance (including accent training for actors and why singers' accents change in song—which she should know, since she's also a singer in a rock band), and on transgender and synthesized voices. I started with the chapter that relates most to my work ('English voices, global voices') and then went back to the beginning where I was most likely to run into things I already know. That's good from a reviewing perspective, because I can say with confidence that Setter covers well the things that I know need to be covered for her audience. But as I got further into the book, the more unexpected things I learned. I ended in the chapter on women's and men's voices, and I will tell you: I learned some things! To give an example, I liked her interpretation of a study in which women and men were asked to count to ten using various kinds of voices, including 'confident' and 'sexy'. It turns out men generally don't have a 'sexy voice' to put on, while women do, and this might tell us something about what we're sociali{s/z}ed to find sexy—and why.

It's hard to write about sound —and especially about linguistic sounds for a general audience. Writing for linguists is easy, because we have a lot of practice in using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). But you don't want to fill a book for non-linguists with letters that don't make the same sound as they make in English spelling, or letters they've never even seen before. Setter mostly talks about accents without having to get into the kind of phonetic minutiae that excite linguists and make laypeople glaze over. Where she does need technical terms (e.g. lexical sets), she explains them carefully and clearly. But happily for all of us, Setter wrote this book in the internet age. Throughout the book, there are scannable QR codes by which one can hear the sounds she's talking about. (You can get there without a QR reader too, the web URLs are provided.)

For readers of this blog with an interest in US/UK issues, there is plenty of comparison between UK and US and discussion of "Americani{s/z}ation". These are discussed with an assumed familiarity with British Englishes and less with American Englishes.

This book is an important instrument for fighting accentism and other linguistic prejudice in the UK. It might make a nice gift for that person in your life who says they "care deeply about the English language", but really what they mean is "I like to judge other people's use of the English language". 

But more than that, it is a great demonstration of what the study of phonetics can do. I really, really recommend it for A-level students in English (language) and their teachers, as it touches on many of the areas of linguistics taught at that level and would surely inspire many doable research projects. 

Let me just end with: congratulations on this book, Jane!


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Book week 2019: David Adger's Language Unlimited

By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com
Published On :: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 18:18:00 +0000

Welcome to the second review post of Book Week 2019. See the intro to Book Week 2019 to understand more about what I'm doing this week. Next up we have:

Language unlimited
the science behind our most creative power

by David Adger
Oxford University Press, 2019


This is a book for people who like to think about HOW THINGS WORK. It's a serious work of popular science writing, which carefully spells out the mysteries of syntax. And by mysteries, I mean things you've probably never even noticed about language. But once they're pointed out, you have to sit back and say "Whoa." Because even though you hadn't noticed these things, you know them. Remember a few years ago, when the internet was hopping with posts about how we subconsciously know which order to put adjectives in? That's kid's play compared with the stuff that Adger'll teach you about the things you know but don't know about.

Adger (who is Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary University, London) describes the situation carefully, clearly, and engagingly, using copious examples and analogies to communicate some really subtle points. (I particularly liked the explanation of form versus function in language, which drew on the form versus the function of alcohol. Chin-chin!) He draws in evidence from neurology, psychology, and computer science to both corroborate his points and to introduce further questions about how language works.

As I said in the intro to Book week, I have not read all the books I'm reviewing absolutely cover-to-cover. In this case, of the ten chapters, I read 1–3, 7, and 10—and skimmed through the other chapters. The early chapters make the case that there's more to linguistic structure than meets the eye and that human linguistic abilities must consist of something special—they must be qualitatively different from the types of cognition that other animals use and that humans use in non-linguistic communication. Later ones cover issues like how children experience and acquire their first language and what happens when computers try to learn human language. Throughout, the examples feature Adger's partner Anson and his cat Lilly.  I almost feel like I know them now. Hi Anson and Lilly!

Adger makes clear from the start that his book makes a particular argument in favo(u)r of a particular way of explaining language's mysteries—and that particular way is a Chomskyan way. This means that he makes the case for a Universal Grammar that underlies all human language. I was struck by his willingness and ability to take this all the way for a lay audience. By chapter 9, he is explaining Merge, the key tool of Chomsky's Minimalist Program. 

Now, here I have to say: this is not the kind of linguistics I do. It's not just that I'm not a syntactician—though I have, from time to time, dipped my toe into theories grammatical. It's also that I lost faith in theoretical monotheism when I moved from a very Chomskyan undergraduate degree to a more ecumenical linguistics department for my (post)graduate studies. When I arrived for my PhD studies, the department wanted to know which syntactic theories I'd studied, so they could determine which courses I needed to take. I could not tell them. After four years of studying Chomskyan linguistics, I thought I had spent four undergraduate years studying "Syntax". No one had told me that I was studying a theory of syntax, just one among several theories.

Ever since, I have tended to agnosticism and s{c/k}epticism when it comes to syntactic theory. (This is probably how I ended up as not-a-syntactician; I don't know that it's possible to have a career in grammatical studies without adhering to one theoretical church or another.) Being a lexicologist has meant that I don't have to take sides on these things. And so I play around with different theories and see how they deal with the phenomena I study. When I listen to the evangelists, I listen warily. I tend to find that they oversimplify the approaches of competitor theories, and don't learn as much from them as they could (or, at least, sometimes don't give them credit for their contributions). This is all a very long explanation of why I skipped to chapter 7—the chapter where Adger responds to some non-Chomskyan ideas (mostly personified in the chapter by Joan Bybee).

So (mostly BrE*) all credit to Adger for spending a chapter on this, and for citing recent work in it. I generally thought his points were fair, but I did what I usually do in response to such theoretical take-downs: I thought "ok, but what about..." I do think he's right that some facts point to the existence of a Universal Grammar, but I also think it's not the only interesting part of the story, and that it's premature to discount arguments that explore the possibility that much of what happens in language learning is based in experience of language and general cognitive abilities. But then, I would think that.

I definitely recommend the book for people who are interested in the scientific approach to language, but I'd skip the final chapter (10). It is an oddly tacked-on bit about sociolinguistic phenomena, precisely the kinds of things that are not even approached in the theory the rest of the book has been arguing for.

I congratulate Adger on this strong work that makes extraordinarily abstract concepts clear.





P.S. Since I'm not doing Differences of the Day on Twitter this week, here's little chart of use of all credit to (frequency per million words) in the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, for good measure.



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Book Week 2019: David Shariatmadari's Don't Believe a Word

By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com
Published On :: Fri, 29 Nov 2019 00:05:00 +0000

Welcome to the third review post of Book Week 2019. In the intro to Book Week 2019, I explain what I'm doing this week. In the end, there will be four posts. I thought there would be five, but one of the books has (orig. BrE) gone missing. Having had a day off yesterday, I will also have a day off tomorrow, so the final review will appear during the weekend. Probably.

Anyhow, today's book is:

Don't believe a word
the surprising truth about language

by David Shariatmadari
Norton, 2019 (N America)
W&N, 2019 (UK/RoW)


David Shariatmadari writes for the Guardian, often about language, and is one of the sensible journalists on the topic. The number of sensible journalists writing about language has really shot up in the past decade, and judging from reading their books, this is in part because of increasingly clear, public-facing work by academic linguists. (Yay, academic linguists!) But in Shariatmadari's case, the journalist is a linguist: he has a BA and MA in the subject. And it shows—in the best possible way. 

The book is a familiar genre: busting widely held language myths. If you've read books in this genre before, you probably don't need these myths busted. You probably know that linguistic change is natural, that the border between language and dialect is unfindable, that apes haven't really learned sign languages, and that no form of language is inherently superior to another. Nevertheless, you may learn something new, since Shariatmadari's tastes for linguistic research and theories is not always on the same wavelength as some other books directed at such a general audience.

Once again, I'm reviewing with a partial view of the book (this is the practical law of Book Week 2019). In this case, I've read chapters 1, 5, and 9 and skimmed through other bits. The introductory chapter gives us a bit of insight into Shariatmadari's conversion to full-blown linguist, as a reluctant student of Arabic who was quickly converted to admiration for the language and to the study of language as an insight into humanity. "It's not hyperbole to say that linguistics is the universal social science", he writes. "It intrudes into almost every area of knowledge."
UK cover

I chose to read chapter 5 because I'd had the pleasure of hearing him talk about its topic at a student conference recently: the popularity of "untranslatable word" lists. Goodness knows, I've contributed to them. What I liked about the talk was his detective work on the words themselves—some of the words and definitions presented in lists of 'untranslatables' are practically fictional. And yet, those of us who don't speak the language in question often eat up these lists because of our ethnocentric need to exotici{s/z}e others. This leads inevitably to discussion of linguistic relativism—the notion that the language you speak affects the way you think—and the bad, old (so-called) evidence for it and the newer evidence for something much subtler. The chapter then goes in a direction I wasn't expecting: introducing Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), an interesting (but far from universally taught) approach to meaning that uses about 65 semantic building blocks to represent and compare meanings across languages. NSM adherents make the case that few, if any, words are truly equivalent across languages. But while any word in one language may have no single-word equivalent in another language, that doesn't mean those words are untranslatable. It just means that translating them can be a delicate and complicated thing.

US cover
The final chapter (9) takes the opposite view to David Adger's Language Unlimited (in my last review), and argues that the hierarchical (and human-specific) nature of linguistic structure need not be the product of an innate Universal Grammar, but instead could arise from the complexity of the system involved and humans' advanced social cognition. While Adger had a whole book for his argument, Shariatmadari has 30-odd pages, and so it's not really fair to compare them in terms of the depth of their argumentation, but still worth reading the latter to get a sense of how linguists and psychologists are arguing about these things.

Shariatmadari is a clear and engaging writer, and includes a good range of references and a glossary of linguistic terminology. If you know someone who still believes some language myths, this might be a good present for them. (Though in my experience, people don't actually like getting presents that threaten their worldview. I still do it, because I care more about myth-busting writers earning royalties than I care about linguistic chauvinists getting presents they want.) It would also make an excellent gift for A-level English and language students (and teachers) and others who might be future linguists. After they read it, send them my way. I love having myth-busted students.


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Book Week 2019: Gretchen McCulloch's Because Internet

By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com
Published On :: Mon, 02 Dec 2019 12:37:00 +0000


Welcome to the final review post of Book Week 2019. In the intro to Book Week 2019, I explain what I'm doing. The 'week' has turned out to be eight days. If you're perturbed about that, I'm happy to offer you a full refund on your subscription fees for this blog.

On with the show. Today's book is:


Because Internet

Understanding the new rules of language (US subtitle)
Understanding how language is changing (UK subtitle)

by Gretchen McCulloch
Riverhead, 2019 (N America)
Harvill Secker, 2019 (UK)


Gretchen McCulloch describes herself as an internet linguist: writing about internet language for people on the internet. She actually does a lot more than that, with daily blogging at All Things Linguistic for years and being one half of the Lingthusiasm podcast team and writing on all sorts of linguistic themes for all sorts of publications. So, I expect many readers of this blog will already know her and have heard about this book. 

US Cover
I expected Because Internet to be good, knowing Gretchen's work, but I also probably (in my grumpy, middle-aged, oh-do-we-have-to-talk-about-emojis-again? way) expected it to be faddish. There have been too many just-plain-bad, (orig. AmE) jumping-on-the-bandwagon books about emojis, and I've got(ten) a bit sour on the topic. 

This book is so much more than I expected it to be. 

I should have known better. Having read and heard much of her work, I should have expected that this would be a truly sophisticated approach to language and to general-audience linguistics writing. So far in Book Week 2019, I've recommended the books as gifts for A-level students/teachers, science lovers, and language curmudgeons. This book is good for all those groups and more. 

UK cover
The key is in the subtitle(s).* This is not just a book about emojis and autocomplete (and, actually, autocomplete isn't even in the index). This is a book about the relationship between speech and writing and how that's changed with technology. It seamlessly introduces theories of why language changes, how change spreads and how communication works in a time when the potential for change is high and the potential for changes to spread is unprecedented. 

That seamless introduction of linguistic concepts is the reason I've started this book from the beginning and not skipped around (unlike for other books in Book Week—where the rule is that I don't have to read the whole book before I start writing about it). In most books about language for non-linguists, I'm able to skim or skip the bit where they talk about the basics of how language works and the classic studies on the topic and the ideas springing from them. McCulloch covers those issues and those studies (the Labovs, the Milroys, the Eckerts), but since this is intertwined with looking at how language is changing in the 21st century—because (of the) internet—it was worth my while to read straight through. The great thing about the language of the internet is: even when it looks really different from non-internet language, it's still illustrating general principles about how language, communication, and society work. But it also shows how society is changing because of technology, particularly in changing who we are likely to interact with or hear from, In the process, it gives a history of the internet that's enlightening even for those of us who've lived through it all. (I've just flipped open to a section about  PLATO at the University of Illinois. One of my student jobs was working in a PLATO lab, playing Bugs-n-Drugs [aka Medcenter] while signing people in and out. That game was not good for my hypochondria, but I have awfully fond memories of PLATO.)


Another thing to appreciate about McCulloch's book is how unreactionary it is. She doesn't set up her discussion as "You've heard people say these stupid things about the internet, but here's the TRUTH." (A style of writing that I can be very, very guilty of.) She mostly just makes her case gracefully, based on what the language is doing, rather than reacting to what other people say the language is doing. Rather than 'This, that and the other person say emoji are a new language, but they're not', she just gets on with explaining how emoji fulfil(l) our communicative need to gesture. It's a positive approach that academic linguists will have had trained out of them by the requirements of academic publishing.

This is a bit of a nerdview 'review'. Usually reviews tell you some fun facts from the book they're reviewing, whereas I'm telling you what I've noticed about its information structure. That's because that's what I really look for in books as I prepare to write a new one. In terms of information, in this book you'll learn, among other things:
  • which "internet generation" you belong to and how your language is likely to be different from other generations'.
  • what punctuation communicates in texting/chat and how that differs from formal writing
  • how language change can be traced through studying strong and weak social links and geographic tagging on Twitter
Inevitably, the book is mainly about English, in no small part because English rules the internet. But it does make its way to other languages and cultures—for instance, how Arabic chat users adapted their spelling to the roman alphabet and how emojis are interpreted differently around the world.  In the end, she briefly considers whether space is being made for other languages on the internet.

It's a galloping read and you'll learn all sorts of things.


So, on that happy review, I declare Book Week 2019 FINISHED.


* I love the transatlantic change in subtitles, since it completely illustrates the point of chapter 8 of The Prodigal Tongue: that Americans like to talk about language in terms of rules, and Britons in terms of history/tradition. I've also written a shorter piece about my personal experience of it for Zócalo Public Square.


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Pâte Brisée : Jêrôme's 4-ingredient wine-based shortcrust pastry is easy, versatile, delicious for savory quiche or sweet, delectable pie!

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Thu, 07 May 2020 11:46:58 +0200

I can tell you--after seeing them in the bathroom mirror this morning--this shortcrust pastry recipe will give you les poignées d'amour. That's French for "love handles." Même pas peur? Not even scared? Good! Read on and discover a truly delicious and versatile pâte brisée. I should know...I've tested 10 of them in the past week--ever since you asked for the recipe! Today's Word: la pâte brisée : shortcrust pastry, a rich dough for making pie crust Audio: Listen to the words pâte brisée in this soundfile En cuisine, la pâte brisée est une pâte servant de base aux tartes salées ou sucrées. La pâte brisée désigne généralement une pâte composée principalement de farine et de matière grasse sans sucre. In cooking, shortcrust pastry is a dough used as a base for savory or sweet pies. Shortcrust pastry generally refers to a dough composed mainly of flour and fat, without sugar. Jérôme's Pâte Brisée: 4-ingredient Shortcrust Pastry (makes one large or two small tarts!) Ingredients... 2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 cup white wine 1/2 cup sunflower oil Note: ordinary white wine is all you need. Leftover wine will work as long as it hasn't turned to vinegar. For...


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Star Wars out this week: The Rise of Skywalker is just days away!

By clubjade.net
Published On :: Mon, 16 Dec 2019 11:49:00 +0000

Movie week!


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  • books and comics
  • sequel trilogy
  • star wars
  • star wars (2015 comic)
  • star wars adventures (comic)
  • the rise of kylo ren (comic)
  • the rise of skywalker
  • tros reference/nonfiction
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@Home This Weekend: DIY Room Divider

By www.craftster.org
Published On :: Fri, 15 Nov 2019 14:14:54 +0000

This weekend, wow your friends with a gorgeous room divider made from everyday objects. pookiemccool made this pretty screen using a printer box, some old curtains, leftover furniture paint, and duct tape. This would be perfect for a shared bedroom!


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@Home This Weekend: School Spirit Wreath

By www.craftster.org
Published On :: Fri, 22 Nov 2019 15:11:05 +0000

This weekend, show your school spirit with a decorative wreath. Powerhouseofthecell wrapped a wreath form with school colors and added bright flowers. Go team!


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Best Sweet Coleslaw

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Sun, 01 Sep 2019 21:40:48 +0000

Friends, you’re never going to need another coleslaw recipe again. My mom makes the absolute best sweet coleslaw and I’m sharing her secret recipe with you today. Best Sweet Coleslaw Recipe Luckily, my mom isn’t super protective of her recipes. It didn’t take much arm twisting to get her to write her famous sweet coleslaw […]

The post Best Sweet Coleslaw appeared first on Dear Crissy.


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How to Retweet in Twitter - The Idiot's Guide For Twitter Novices - Part 2

By EzineArticles.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:56:26 -0600

In an attempt to break down of some the basics, I will reveal how to retweet in Twitter. I am going to reveal two simple ways to do this.


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Universities Face Decision Between Medical Disaster and Financial Ruin This Fall

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Tue, 05 May 2020 16:34:12 +0000

Amidst great economic and political pressure to reopen in the fall, American colleges and universities must choose between enormous risk and liability if they do open and bankruptcy if they do not. Colleges and universities are among the most vulnerable institutions to disease outbreaks and would serve as efficient grounds the spread of coronavirus as students on campus share close spaces. Students are in close contact in classes, dining halls, clubs, sports, dorms, parties, events, games, assemblies, and meetings. Students could bring the virus to campus upon arrival and bring it home during breaks and holidays. Schools are worried about lawsuits in the case of outbreaks on campus, adding to the risk of reopening in the fall. If schools choose not to reopen this fall, they could lose half of their revenue and ultimately not recover, either filing for bankruptcy or closing permanently. Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are being hit the hardest by the financial burden of the pandemic and because African Americans are bearing a disproportionate share of the pandemic, school populations of HBCUs are more likely to be impacted by Covid-19. In response to political pressure from the GOP to reopen in the fall, schools are […]

Related posts:

  1. California Special Needs Students Left Behind Amidst COVID-19 Education Changes
  2. Democrats and Civil Rights Groups Demand Delay of New Title IX Rule
  3. New Kaiser Family Foundation Survey Shows Coronavirus Weighs More Heavily on Women


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First ICE Detainee Covid-19 Death Occurred This Week

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 20:29:54 +0000

 A 57-year-old man from El Salvador who was being held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in California died from Covid-19 on Wednesday. This is the first confirmed death from the coronavirus at an ICE detention center. Carlos Escobar-Mejia has been detained at the center since Jan. 10 after having lived in the U.S. for 40 years. While at the detention center, he was on a list of people who are medically vulnerable to the virus and are therefore eligible for immediate release but was hospitalized before the list was fully put together. According to ICE, 705 out of 1,460 detainees tested positive for Covid-19. At the Otay Mesa center alone, there are 140 cases of Covid-19 out of the 649 detainees there, making it the facility with the largest number of positive tests among detainees. The Otay Mesa center is owned by the private prison company CoreCivic, which has not commented on the situation there. ICE maintains that it is caring for its detainees in light of the pandemic, but detainees have said that they do not have enough space to socially distance, that they do not have enough clean masks, and that guards are not adhering to CDC […]

No related posts.


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The Cure at ACL Festival weekend 1

By craigjparker.blogspot.com
Published On :: Sat, 05 Oct 2019 22:08:00 +0000

October 5th, 2019
Austin City Limits Festival in Austin, Texas
Cure are scheduled to play from 8 - 10 pm central.

Setlist: Plainsong, Pictures of You, A Night Like This, Just One Kiss, Lovesong, Last Dance, Burn, Fascination Street, Never Enough, Push, In Between Days, Just Like Heaven, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Play For Today, A Forest, Shake Dog Shake, Disintegration

Encore: Lullaby, The Caterpillar, The Walk, Friday I'm in Love, Close to Me, Why Can't I Be You?, Boys Don't Cry.

 


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Weekly Photography Challenge – Everyday Objects

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 19:00:00 +0000

The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Everyday Objects appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

Since many of us are still limited to where we can go, this week’s photography challenge topic is the EVERYDAY OBJECTS! Everyday objects can be anything from a cup filled with coffee, TV remote, shoes, pens, computer mouse to a guitar pick. You get the picture! Get creative with them, either with the photography style […]

The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Everyday Objects appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.


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This week's New York Times Bestsellers (March 23rd)

By fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com
Published On :: Sun, 29 Mar 2020 00:35:00 +0000

In paperback:

Stephen King's The Outsider maintains its position at number 5 (trade paperback).


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This week's New York Times Bestsellers (March 30th)

By fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com
Published On :: Sat, 04 Apr 2020 00:37:00 +0000

In hardcover:

Rae Carson's The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition debuts at number 5.

Patricia Briggs' Smoke Bitten debuts at number 6.

In paperback:

Stephen King's The Outsider maintains its position at number 5 (trade paperback).


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This week's New York Times Bestsellers (April 6th)

By fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com
Published On :: Fri, 10 Apr 2020 23:40:00 +0000

In hardcover:

N. K. Jemisin's The City We Became debuts at number 9.

In paperback:

Stephen King's The Outsider is up one position, ending the week at number 4 (trade paperback).


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This week's New York Times Bestsellers (April 13th)

By fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com
Published On :: Fri, 17 Apr 2020 23:52:00 +0000

In paperback:

Stephen King's The Outsider is down six positions, ending the week at number 10 (trade paperback).

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale returns at number 14 (trade paperback).


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This week's New York Times Bestsellers (April 20th)

By fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com
Published On :: Fri, 24 Apr 2020 23:43:00 +0000

In paperback:

Stephen King's The Outsider is down five positions, ending the week at number 15 (trade paperback).


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This week's New York Times Bestsellers (April 27th)

By fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com
Published On :: Fri, 01 May 2020 22:48:00 +0000

In paperback:

Stephen King's The Outsider is up three positions, ending the week at number 12 (trade paperback).


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This week's New York Times Bestsellers (May 4th)

By fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com
Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 00:42:00 +0000

In hardcover:

Stephen King's If It Bleeds debuts at number 1. For more info about this title, follow these Amazon Associate links: Canada, USA, Europe.


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Gene flow between species influences evolution in Darwin’s finches

By www.princeton.edu
Published On :: Thu, 07 May 2020 09:23:00 -0400

Princeton ecologists Peter and Rosemary Grant led a team of researchers to discover how genetics and hybridization affected the beak shape of finches on the Galápagos Islands.


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COVID19 in Cusco Quarantine Week 4

By www.travelblog.org
Published On ::

Sunday 5 April 2020Even though I can only see a sliver of the park and street from my windows that sliver includes two park benches. These past three weeks Ive only seen one person sit there. After last weeks scolding on Monday I have


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Derbyshire 82 Chesterfield Gabby is still parked up I spy Another three weeks of lockdown

By www.travelblog.org
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The brain this morning does not want to function . One side is saying get up get moving get out . The other side replies in a negative fashion . Let me stay in bed a bit longer. My foot aches . Underneath and on top. Shoes are rubbing toes from so much


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COVID19 in Cusco Quarantine Week 5

By www.travelblog.org
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Sunday 12 April 202028 days of quarantine down 14 more to goLike every Sunday in the new world of Peru under quarantine nobody is allowed to leave their homes today except for emergency medical services. All grocery stores pharmacies a


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Derbyshire 85 Chesterfield Every cloud and the bald man and the comb Where to head for now from Skeggy Week 5 Day 32

By www.travelblog.org
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Morning all I guess you will all be up and greeting the dawn . Sleep did not come easy last night . Tossing and turning . You get nights like that at times . Hoping that once your head hits the pillow you will fall asleep . Some nights you do. Others the


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Derbyshire 86 Chesterfield 768 hours what is the connection between hairdressers barbers and SpaceX Starlink

By www.travelblog.org
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The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough Rabindranath Tagore one of my favourites. I saw the first butterfly of the season today . A Cabbage White the scourge of gardeners who love their cabbages . The pretty white things lays


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Derbyshire 91 Chesterfield Borage Blue another weekend has come and almost gone a phone app to track our movements The Archers

By www.travelblog.org
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Thankyou to my travelblog friend you know who you are for introducing the colour Borage Blue to my collection of colours . She told me that the plant I struggled finding a name for yesterday was Borage . An electric blue and a stunning plant .Anothe


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COVID19 in Cusco Quarantine Week 6

By www.travelblog.org
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Sunday 19 April 202035 days down 7 more to goIve been looking forward to today all week My housemates and I have been planning a picnic on the roof today. I chose Sunday because were not allowed to leave the house and I wanted to h


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Oregon Trip 2011 week of July 4th Just me and Mom

By www.travelblog.org
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Oregon Trip 2011Day 1We left the house at 0600 and ate breakfast at Shoneys before heading to Nashville. After dropping off the car at Alexis Inn and Suites and after Mom was finally able to get up into the shuttle van lol we were off.The fl


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