At the time of writing, I’m the only person ever to have used the term Glasgasian on the web. (It refers to the accent lots of Glaswegian people of Asian descent have. I thought it was a fairly well known and used term, but now I’m wondering if I invented it!)
« »The conventional view is that language evolved to enable males to do things like coordinate hunts more effectively… I am suggesting that language evolved to allow us to gossip.–Robin Dunbar, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language (Via this piece on Williams syndrome.)
« »I subscribe to the A Word A Day mailing list, which more often than not deals in familiar words. Every so often it throws up a beautiful and useless gem, though: Bissextile–of or pertaining to the leap year or the extra day in the leap year.
« »Is The New documents every instance of the phrase “is the new” encountered from various sources in 2005.
« »A recent comment on Submit Response: err yec i apear to luvmuz lasy sovmuz yec? how wud yew like tew suck meh yec merc yerc smeckers (I have no idea what it means.)
« »The irony mark (French: point d’ironie) is a punctuation mark that purports to indicate that a sentence should be understood at a second level.
# irony, language, punctuation