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Only a few countries are teaching children how to think
Education standards Best and brightest Only a few countries are teaching children how to think The Economist, Aug 17th 2013 |From the print edition The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way. By Amanda Ripley.Simon and Schuster; 320 pages; $28. BAMA Companies has been making pies and biscuits in Oklahoma since the 1920s. […]
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It’s in its right place: how to use apostrophes – the winning haiku. | Mind your language
Some of the best entries from last week’s International Apostrophe Day haiku competition Here are my 10 favourite entries from last week’s competition for International Apostrophe Day. Entrants had to tweet an apostrophe-themed haiku. @Artellus worked out that the tagline #apostropheday had the right number of syllables: Just one haiku each? If so, don’t count […]
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Decline in French Language Skills Worry Academics in Madagascar
In the former French colony of Madagascar, the French language continues to play an important role in education, particularly at university level. French and Malagasy are the official languages in the Indian Ocean Island.
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Research Trends in Intercultural Pragmatics (Mouton de Gruyter)
I’ve just finished the last proofs of the forthcoming volume “Research trends in intercultural pragmatics”, edited by Istvan Kecskes and Jesús Romero-Trillo, to appear in September 2013. See webpage
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If you can’t use an apostrophe, you don’t know your shit | Mind your language
Greengrocers – and big supermarkets – may struggle to tame the ‘apostrofly’, but it’s not actually that hard I used to think “weer” in the song Mama Weer All Crazee Now was Slade’s idiosyncratic spelling of “were”, in Black Country dialect (which I am allowed to make fun of because my family originally came from […]
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Nous twitterons: The French language is getting battered by social media. (The Economist)
Aug 10th 2013 | PARIS | AURELIE FILIPPETTI, the French minister for culture, had to retract a tweet this week after making a glaring spelling mistake. As she is the official guardian of the French language, this was more than a bit embarrassing. Twitter’s spontaneity invites carelessness; and the minister duly blamed a sloppy aide. But for linguistic […]