The English language is a growing concern. Every year, Collins gets a pile of free publicity by publicly announcing new additions to its dictionary . . .

My potshots before shooing you off to Lingua Techna: I’m almost certainly overreacting, but am I supposed to infer that dictionary publisher Collins is adding words for the publicity alone? Let’s then also take to task that cynical Encyclopedia Britannica, which keeps adding facts in new editions, the mercenaries! Besides, doesn’t the wealth of publicity bestowed on the announcement indicate that others are interested in said new words, perhaps more so than certain writers? Finally, the Write Tight editor in me must resort to persnickitation and grumble about the redundant “new additions.” Knee-jerk reaction and all that.

Spotted in a blog:

To atone if your’e a jargoneer: Pick a page (or a paragraph) on your website full of buzzwords and industry jargon. If you can’t be an objective judge, have your husband/wife/teenager/friend read it for you. Cross out all the offensive words. . . .

your’e has a certain bit of French panache to it, doesn’t it? Perhaps the symbol is really a slightly miscentered accent over the E. I’m particularly amused by “Cross out all the offensive words.” Like your’e, perhaps? Granted, this is a typo and not pure misuse, but what the hell, sometimes you gotta swing at the softballs tossed at you. For more graphic illustration of true misuse in everyday life, check out the Apostrophism and Apostrophe Abuse blogs. And mull the, shall we say, understated attitude of GrammarBlog: “Do you think people who don’t know the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ should be strung up by their gonads? You do? Welcome to GrammarBlog.”

Speaking of French panache, let’s talk about some French pan-ass:

At Dennis Baron’s The Web of Language: More on the Académie Française insisting on wearing “Donnez- un coup de pied moi!” (”Kick me!”) signs on its collective back: Not only does this institution continue to demand purging all non-French words (“One recent example is the Académie’s recommendation of the use of the word ‘courriel’ instead of the English ‘e-mail’”), but now the institution and the people who belong in one demand (no s’il vous plais! involved) that France refuse to recognize even the languages native within its own borders, such as Occitan. Baron writes, “on Monday [June 16, 2008] the Académie Française rejected any attempt to constitutionalize local languages as ‘an attack on French national identity.’” My favorite quote from the post:

France has always been a linguistically-diverse country—the nation is even named after the Franks, a medieval Germanic tribe . . .

Plus, ya gotta like a writer who uses Monty Python to illustrate his points.

Permalink