Dear Language Nerd, I’m on the phone all the time for my job, and I’ve noticed something odd. When I talk to New Yorkers, I sound a little like a Yankee. When I talk to Georgians, I sound a little Southern. When I talk to Londoners, I sound a little British. I’m not doing it […]
My friend is worried she might have an STD. How do you tell? Sara *** Dear Sara, I am going to resist the natural sardonic urge of every paramedic to say, “Sure, your ‘FRIEND’ has an STD…WINK WINK.” Ok, so I gave in. Congrats to your friend for getting lucky enough to where […]
Think of a grammar rule. Any grammar rule. Basic, bizarre, straightforward, convoluted. Whatever. Got it? Okay, then, consider: why do you think this counts as a grammar rule? What gives it credence? Here are the usual reasons: An authority said it, like a high school English teacher or Strunk and White. Good, careful writers always […]
Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style is bad for writers. This is an unpopular position, I know. Elements is beloved by literati, authors, English teachers, Supreme Court justices. Its precepts are in our stylebooks, our standardized tests, the air we breathe. People adore this book. I’m blaspheming. I don’t care. It is a bad […]
Language Nerd, Spanish and French were once both dialects of Latin, but now they’re different languages… when did they switch from 2 dialects of one language to 2 languages? *** Dear mysterious anonymous person, When Spanish and French people stopped being able to understand each other. Since I’ve been calling myself the Language Nerd for […]
Hey Lang Nerd! (BTW I loved the post about the NATO Phonetic Alphabet) Is it easier to develop a text-to-speech application for Chinese, rather than other languages, because the tones are already built into the words? Like, wouldn’t that mean that the program doesn’t have to enforce sort of a global tone to the sentence, […]