Language and words in the news – 20th April 2012

This post contains a selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular.

Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit a link for us to include, or just add a comment to the post, with the link(s) you’d like to share.

Global English

Yours, sir, is a LAFA
In countries where English is commonly spoken, particularly those that suffered colonialism under the British, the ability to speak the Queen’s English is associated with a certain nebulous prestige.

Language change and slang

Hey Dude
I am not “Mr Lebowski”. You’re Mr Lebowski. I’m the Dude. So that’s what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.

AP’s approval of ‘hopefully’ symbolizes larger debate over language
On Tuesday morning, the venerated AP Stylebook publicly affirmed (via tweet, no less) what it had already told the American Copy Editors Society: It, too, had succumbed.

Did he really mean literally dead?
18-year-old tweets that he is “Literally so dead” after first weekend of arts festival. Gets mocked.

Gone gay
Nobody is quite sure when gay shifted meaning from jolly to homosexual. It’s complicated by the fact that gay could also mean libidinous.

Language teaching and resources

8 Social Media Strategies for Your Classroom
Study after study has confirmed the benefits of networking. Before we delve into strategies, though, let’s look at some reasons why we should connect with students in this manner.

Cartoon: Hire a hoodie
This cartoon by Andy Davey from The Sun relates to a speech by UK Employment Minister Chris Grayling in which he called on bosses to give local youths a chance instead of hiring experienced Eastern Europeans.

Books, words, languages and dictionaries

Might makes right: The Godfather’s Italian table
“Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola is a big shot — and not just in the film world. As a vintner and restaurateur, Coppola apparently sees himself as the capo di tutti capi — the boss of all bosses — who owns the Italian dictionary.

For Japanese Linguist, A Long And Lonely Schlep
Now Japan’s leading scholar of Yiddish, Ueda was originally a specialist in German. He stumbled upon the Jewish language while reading Franz Kafka.

Language learning helps to ward off dementia
New research demonstrates that learning another language could prevent the onset of the cognitive disease dementia.

Just for fun

Happy Quasimodo
The Inky Fool again, on an oddly named date in the church calendar.

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