If one could know for sure how iffy things are for English-speaking doctors compared to how iffy things are for French-speaking doctors, one might reach the same conclusions as are reached in this study: “The ‘iffiness’ of medical research articles —A comparison of English if and French si,” Shirley Carter-Thomas [pictured here], in Language and […]
Tag: English
Fear and Loathing of the English Passive
A new study has been written. It has been published online. Pedants of the future will have had the opportunity to know of it: “Fear and Loathing of the English Passive,” Geoffrey K. Pullum, epub January 10, 2014, to appear in Language and Communication, 2014. (Thanks to Rosie Mestel for having brought this to our […]
The hazard of being an English football league manager
Sports managers, the ones who operate at the highest levels, don’t manage to hang on to their jobs long, says this study: “The hazard of being an English football league manager: empirical estimates for three recent league seasons,” R. Bachan, Barry Reilly, and Robert Witt [pictured here], Journal of the Operational Research Society, vol. 59, no. […]
American insight on accents: How to….
Linguistics, like all collections and studies of knowledge, is centered in and around the US. All Americans know that for a fact. The LearnTheAccent web site has both instructions and instructive examples, for Americans, of people speaking English with different accents. Here’s one — speaking English with an Italian accent. INSTRUCTIONS. EXAMPLE: