It's time for our end-of-month roundup of language-related items in the news--from the linguistically profound to the lexically ridiculous.
- "Chatbots" for English Language Learners
A Japanese company claims to have invented the world's first artificial intelligence "chat robots" designed specifically to converse with English language students. . . . Read more
(Danielle Demetriou, "Japan Creates Online 'Chat Robots' to Converse With Language Students." The Daily Telegraph [UK], September 13, 2011) - Alphabetic Chat
Many acronyms meant to be written have wormed their way into spoken language--just ask your BFF, or the co-worker who prefaces everything with 'FYI.' Lately, this is also the case for Internet slang. First developed about 20 years ago . . ., terms like LOL (laugh out loud), OMG (oh my God) and BTW (by the way) now seem to be popping up in real life (IRL). . . . Read more
(Douglas Quenqua, "Alphabet Soup." The New York Times, September 23, 2011) - Twitter Blends
A cocktail of twitter and plagiarism, it's pretty clear what "twagiarism" means and it's by no means the first such new word--that is, the first old word to find "tw-" thwacked on to its front end. Where are these neologisms coming from and why do some people find them irritating? . . . Read more
(Alan Connor, "Twitter Spawns Twitterverse of New Words." BBC News Magazine, September 5, 2011) - Language Speeds
It's an almost universal truth that any language you don't understand sounds like it's being spoken at 200 miles per hour . . .. [R]esearchers from the Université de Lyon recruited 59 male and female volunteers who were native speakers of one of seven common languages . . .. They instructed them all to read 20 different texts . . .. [A]t the end of, say, a minute of speech, all of the languages . . . conveyed more or less identical amounts of information. . . . Read more
(Jeffry Kluger, "Slow Down! Why Some Languages Sound So Fast." Time, September 8, 2011) - India's Link Language
India has more than 100 million English speakers, not taking into account others who can converse in English but are unable to read or write in English. . . . If you are an international traveler on your maiden trip to India, you would be fascinated to see English, not Hindi (which is India's official language), used along with the state's regional language at the railway stations, airports, on advertising billboards and all across the city. . . . Read more
(Sonal Jaitly, "Linguistically Speaking--English Becomes India's 'Numero-Uno' Language." The Washington Times, September 23, 2011) - Webster's Third New International Dictionary at 50
[T]he furor over Webster's Third . . . marked the end of an era. It's a safe bet that no new dictionary will ever incite a similar uproar, whatever it contains. The dictionary simply doesn't have the symbolic importance it did a half-century ago, when critics saw the Third as a capitulation to the despised culture of middlebrow . . .. Read more
(Geoffrey Nunberg, "When a Dictionary Could Outrage." The New York Times, September 23, 2011) - The Missing Actress
Newspapers devise style guides for two reasons: to steer writers and editors through the trickier waters of the English language and to attempt (sometimes in vain) to apply some consistency in grammar, punctuation and spelling across the many thousands of articles published each year. . . . Take, for instance, the term "actor." When the Observer and the Guardian published their new joint style guide last year, this clause appeared: "Use for both male and female actors; do not use actress except when in name of award, eg Oscar for best actress." . . . Read more
(Stephen Pritchard, "The Readers' Editor on . . . Actor or Actress?" The Observer [UK], September 25, 2011) - Crazy English in China
[W]hile huge numbers of Chinese learn English in school, only a handful are able to translate their skill at reading and writing, earned through hours of staring at books, into spoken English. Crazy English, or Fengkuang Yingyu, is Li Yang's attempt to break that oral barrier. Instead of writing sentences, students stand on the roof and scream them. . . . Read more
(Malcolm Moore, "What Is Crazy English and Who Is Li Yang?" The Daily Telegraph [UK], September 12, 2011) - The Official Language of Pennsylvania
English is the official language in 30 states. Pennsylvania could become the 31st, with a push on now by some state legislators. . . . Read more
(Michael Matza, "Push Is On to Make English the Official Pa. Language." The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 19, 2011)
Back Issues of Language in the News:
- Tech Terms, Indian English, and Endangered Words (August 2011)
- Typos, Jargon, and Verbal Stumbles (July 2011)
- Dictionaries, Bilingualism, and Disney English (June 2011)
- Riverspeak, Plain English, and Logical Punctuation (May 2011)
Image: The 2011 National Book Festival sponsored by the Library of Congress (September 24-25, 2011)
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