The unassailable rise of English?


	The unassailable rise of English?

ghiberti

9-30-2007 1:20 PM

928 views

tags:

language, english, words, literature, guardian

ghiberti says:

An article an how the mongrel nature of spoken English allows it to thrive

2 Comments |

Add a Comment

10-1-2007 8:10 AM

jonhatespigeons

There's not enough taught in schools about swearing. One of my English teachers in high school was so annoyed at hearing swearing used in the wrong context he decided to dedicate a whole lesson to correcting people's use of language. I think swearing used intelligently is a vital part of modern language, especially used in both humourous and vitriolic circumstances.

Nice clip ghiberti, you ****!!!!!!!

10-1-2007 6:01 PM

ghiberti

only a 4 star expletive jon?

Login to Comment. Not a member yet? Sign up

Today's Top Clips

visit the Top Clips page

View the Top Clips from September 30, 2007

Embed This Clip In Your Site...

<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/5db9629b-511c-430b-9c28-7f0ad89e6e5d/E1FF855E-ECA5-4EC5-B55A-504E8AA9B69B/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2179269,00.html" href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2179269,00.html" style="font-size: 11px;">books.guardian.co.uk</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2179269,00.html"><H1>You say potato, I say ghoughbteighpteau</H1></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2179269,00.html"><P>If you wanted to learn all the words in the Oxford English Dictionary, you'd have to deal with about 500,000 of them (the last of which is zyxt, a splendid last word by any standards and an archaic Kentish term for thou seest). Having done that, you'd probably be a bit taken aback to learn that the equivalent American dictionary, Webster's, offers a further 450,000 words or so, of which only about half are to be found in the OED, suggesting a pooled total wordcount of about 750,000. But there are lots of words that never get into either dictionary. Flora and fauna are mostly out. So are most acronyms. So is much slang and dialect. Total that lot up and you'd get to a million or so. Next, you'd need to deal with scientific and technological terms, adding another million or so words to the pot.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2179269,00.html">The official dictionary-based word count of German is under 200,000 words. The equivalent French word-count is less than 100,000.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/E1FF855E-ECA5-4EC5-B55A-504E8AA9B69B/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

New from the makers of Clipmarks: Amplify.com - Don't just share the news...Amplify it!

Clipmarks: Home; New Clips; Top Clips; Dashboard

Popular Topics: News; Life; Science; Technology; Entertainment

Get Started: Sign Up; Install Clipping Tool; How Clipping Works; Clip-to-Blog™; ClipSearch

Tools and Resources: FAQ; ClipWeek; Top Clippers; Top Tags; Site Map

About Clipmarks: About Us; Contact; Copyright; Privacy; EULA

Search Options

Today's Top Clips