Allan Metcalf at Lingua Franca writes about a publication I may just have to shell out for:This week something rare, old fashioned, scholarly, and entertaining arrived via the U.S. Postal Service. As usual, I?m postponing other tasks until I have read it cover to cover. It?s a journal you?ve probably never heard of: Comments on Etymology. Rare I call it, because the journal has very few subscribers.
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A lovely little piece on Lingua Franca today by Allan Metcalf of the American Dialect Society, citing numerous examples of different dialects being characterized by the same layperson's description: the undefined but oh-so-popular p... Read Post
Allan Metcalf has done a remarkable thing over on Lingua Franca: he has announced a contest in which readers have to think up new fake prescriptive rules ("The rule has to be a brand new one, not announced in any previous usage manu... Read Post
Image Credit Some of my recent favorites: Lingua Franca - The Chronicle of Higher Education - Language and writing in academe. Posts by Lucy Ferriss, Allan Metcalf, Geoffrey K. Pullum, Carol Fisher Saller and Ben Yagoda The American... Read Post