“These days, a chicken leg is a rare dish” might sound like an odd thing to observe, but during World War II, it was among dozens of phonetically balanced sentences devised by researchers for testing cockpit transmissions and headphones...
Careful what you criticize! Not long ago, some words that sound perfectly normal today were considered gauche and grating on the ear. If the complainers had had their way, we couldn’t say a word like pessimism or use contact as a verb! Also...
Yeah, no often does two jobs in conversation: yeah acknowledges that something was heard or partly accepted, while no disagrees with the substance. Mark in York, Pennsylvania, hears it mainly in speech, a pattern also noted in varieties of English...
We often hear that English is going to hell in a handbasket. Actually, though, linguistic handwringing about sinking standards and sloppy speech has been going on for centuries – at least as far back as the 1300’s! And: language also...
If you live in a city in India, you probably have at least some facility in at least two languages. As Salman Rushdie once observed: “If you listen to the urban speech patterns there you’ll find it’s quite characteristic that a...
If someone asks you a question but you’ve forgotten the answer, you might respond with the phrase “I’ve slept since then.” The implication seems to be that it’s been more than 24 hours since you either learned the...