Turning the tables, linguistically speaking
#1
Turning the tables, linguistically speaking
We moan about creeping Americanisms, but it seems language is also going the other way and some of them don't like it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19670686
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19670686
#2
Re: Turning the tables, linguistically speaking
Weird, Nunberg is a linguist yet a precriptivist? Can't be held in much esteem by his colleagues then.
#3
Re: Turning the tables, linguistically speaking
There is always somebody who is not happy...one way or the other...:P
I think it's great, it shows that people mix and take from each other what they find useful or like. Nothing wrong with that, IMHO.
Except of course, if somebody tells me to "do the needful"..
I think it's great, it shows that people mix and take from each other what they find useful or like. Nothing wrong with that, IMHO.
Except of course, if somebody tells me to "do the needful"..
#6
Re: Turning the tables, linguistically speaking
Anybody else feel the need to do this when they hear that?
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3...t9nio1_400.gif
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3...t9nio1_400.gif
#11
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 13,553
Re: Turning the tables, linguistically speaking
We moan about creeping Americanisms, but it seems language is also going the other way and some of them don't like it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19670686
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19670686
#12
Re: Turning the tables, linguistically speaking
I quite like 'do the needful' as it's shorter 'do what needs to be done'.
Pet hate is the particularly American habit, although it's happening in the UK too now, of using nouns as verbs. To golf is not a verb.
#13
Hit 16's
Joined: Mar 2010
Location: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine
Posts: 13,112
Re: Turning the tables, linguistically speaking
My moron of an HR manager has started using headline-style punctuation: a comma instead of an ampersand or "and". One of his recent communiques was titled "Ramadan Timings in Abu Dhabi, Oman". Allegedly he has two masters degrees...
#14
Re: Turning the tables, linguistically speaking
It's possible that there are two Master's out there wondering where their degrees are...