Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Chatting gas

Here's a very dubious poll that claims men gossip more than women. It's not dubious because men don't gossip (they do, but they probably don't like to call it "gossip"), but it's dubious because it's such a rubbish set of questions and relies on such sketchy data. Have a look here for The Telegraph's take on it.

As Deborah Cameron points out so clearly in her excellent Myth of Mars and Venus (covered here), we shouldn't generalise about what men and women do in conversation, because there are so many different types of men and women and we all "do" masculinity and femininity in different ways depending on where we are and who we're with, but one big stereotype about gossip is that it's just a girl thing.

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...