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Words on Holiday
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A Conservative back-bencher named Sir Thomas Massey-Massey rose to propose that the name of the holiday be changed to “Christtide.”
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English is Gonna Change from What it Yusta Be
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Note, in any case, that, if we can substitute going to for gonna in every instance, the reverse is not true. I’m going to Chicago cannot be changed to I’m gonna Chicago.
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How Many Languages Are There Anyway?
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You would think linguists would have a pretty good idea how many languages are spoken in the world. It’s not likely that more than two or three little bands of hunters in small villages have gone unnoticed up to now in the rugged mountains of Papua New Guinea.
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Name-Calling
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At a meeting at UNH a few years ago I was taken to task by a graduate student for using the phrase “American Indians.”
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Speaking of Words: Why English is Weird
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For reasons that have nothing to do with its virtues, English has become “the world language.” Although more people speak Mandarin Chinese as a first language than English, hundreds of millions of people speak English fluently as a second language or, as in India, a second first language
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Speaking of Words: They-Them-Their
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Twice in the last fifty years or so we who speak English, and especially we who write English, have been pressed to change what pronouns we use when referring to a person of unknown gender.