Tag Archives: language

Language isn’t ‘alive’ – why this metaphor can be misleading

Language isn’t ‘alive’ – why this metaphor can be misleading

“Living”, “evolving” and “dead”: we often talk about languages as if they were living organisms. The reason for this use of a metaphor to talk about language lies in the deep complexity of language as a concept. But treating language in this way can have drawbacks: it can lead us to misunderstand the relationship between […] … learn more→

Are we using the terms 'authenticate' and 'authenticate' correctly?

Are we using the terms ‘authenticate’ and ‘authenticate’ correctly?

When carrying out administrative procedures, the user is often asked to authenticate or authenticate what is requested, indistinctly. By using both words, one can consider the influence of the English authenticate or authenticate in the use of these verbs. However, today the two words are included in the Dictionary of the Spanish language of the Royal Academy, the basis of the standard in terms of lexicon. In […] … learn more→

Language, a collective creation

Language, a collective creation

Although we don’t usually think about it, we have around us one of the fundamental wonders of which our species is capable, and whose invention should guide our idea of ​​what it is to create. Its existence confirms that a collective creation is possible, and a common and shared intelligence. That wonder is human language. Our global […] … learn more→

Things you were taught at school that are wrong

Things you were taught at school that are wrong

Do you remember being taught you should never start your sentences with “And” or “But”? What if I told you that your teachers were wrong and there are lots of other so-called grammar rules that we’ve probably been getting wrong in our English classrooms for years? How did grammar rules come about? To understand why […] … learn more→

Sins against the comma

Sins against the comma

While fiction writers have a special dispensation to scatter sentence fragments and comma splices throughout their ripping yarns, writers of academic prose are held to higher standards. Examiners of theses and reviewers of journal articles expect to see punctuation in the ‘right’ places; that is, correctly deployed according to the current conventions of formal writing. […] … learn more→

Blogging in the growlery

Blogging in the growlery

Like Shakespeare, Charles Dickens liked to invent new words. Along with flummox, abuzz, and whiz-bang, he is also often credited with ‘the growlery’, which he mentioned in passing in Bleak House. There is some debate about whether this word is his creation, and most dictionaries suggest it is an archaic term he adopted but that […] … learn more→

Shakespeare in the courtroom

Julius Caesar and Otello (the version of Othello by Giuseppe Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito): These are the texts that framed the final remarks of federal Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted last month of the Boston Marathon killings. The Tsarnaev case moved Judge O’Toole to reach for […] … learn more→

Whose students?

A few years ago I stopped referring to my students in my writing. It’s not that I ceased talking about students; I stopped referring to them as mine. Or at least I try. I am sure I still fall into the phrase my students sometimes in my written work (one of the astute readers of […] … learn more→

With good reason

The query took me by surprise. A few weeks ago an editor who was reviewing a piece I had submitted (for a publication other than this one) wrote: You start one paragraph: “There’s good reason we associate. … ” It caught my eye — and I figured I better check! It’s such a subtle little […] … learn more→