Sunday, January 04, 2009

Words we do not <3

A story in the Daily Telegraph reports on the Lake Superior State University in Michigan, USA's annual list of words which should be banned. It's a light-hearted look at expressions that have become over-used in American speech, or that have become meaningless cliches, and makes a good companion piece to Susie Dent's list of words we hated in 2008.

Among the entries in the Lake Superior State University list are some we've probably all heard used here or in coverage of American politics - green for environmental, maverick for deranged and republican, iconic for anything/anyone remotely famous - and others I'd not come across such as the less than 3 emoticon used in the title of this post. It means heart, apparently. Yuck.

Black British English vs MLE

The latest episode of Lexis is out and it features an interview with Ife Thompson about lots of issues connected to Black British English, i...