Ling- English
Says George Orwell: A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:What am I trying to say?What words will express it?What image or idiom will make it clearer?Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?And he
Ling- Français
L’utilisation de l’anglais se banalise en France et dans de nombreux pays. Ce phénomène ancien est aujourd’hui porté par la mondialisation de l’économie, dont l’anglo-américain est la langue véhiculaire. Si la classe dirigeante semble l’encourager, des résistances s’organisent. - via Le Monde diplomatique.
Ling- English
via Fors Clavigera. Do yourself a favor: skip three days at Starbucks and sign up for a subscription today.
Ling- English
Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change
Ling- English
via FT.com: But now the term seems to have slipped free of its mathematical moorings altogether: living “exponentially” involves having “quality time with yourself” and “living in your own truth”. Speaking from the vantage point of my own truth, I find some things are truer than others. Truest of
English language
A language with its sleeves rolled up and its necktie loosened. (...) [I]t is “the language that says ‘no’. No to piety, to religion, to ideology and all its permutations, to honour, nobility, patriotism and their kindred infantilisms (...)”. It is all those words we wouldn’t utter in a job
Comic relief
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjhOBiSk8Gg] See also: Who cheques the chequer?
Comic relief
It came with my Pea Sea. It plane lee marks four my revue Miss steaks I can knot sea. Eye ran this poem threw it, Your shore real glad two no. Its vary polished in it’s weigh. My chequer tolled me sew. (OUPblog)
Cliche
Although we're still "giving/providing feedback" today, that's just starting to be replaced by its successor: "providing developmental feedback." (Note, again, another example of adding a positive adjective to a negative phrase.) This pattern is more invidious than it seems to be
Ling- English
So here we are in the era of Word's red-underline "wrong spelling, dumb ass" feature and Outlook's Always Check Spelling Before Sending option, and still the mistakes proliferate. Catching typos is easy (although not everyone does it). It's the other stuff
English language
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:What am I trying to say?What words will express it?What image or idiom will make it clearer?Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?He will probably ask himself
English language
You achieve plain English when you use the simplest, most straightforward way of expressing an idea. You can still choose interesting words. But you'll avoid fancy ones that have everyday replacements meaning precisely the same thing. - Bryan Garner on "Plain English" And you will find several