Thursday 6 January 2011

Books recently read!!

Deborah Cameron - The Myth of Mars and Venus - very insightful look into the stereotypes that have become an accepted norm when considering language and gender, due to popular ideas such as John Gray - Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.

Lynne Truss - Eats, Shoots and Leaves - very enjoyable, written with just enough self-deprecation to make it fun, and I now know how to use the apostrophe, and the Oxford comma.

Emagazine - Sept 2010 issue. - nice piece on texting and the effect on language use.

Jean Aitchison - Language Change: progress or decay - good overall presentation of the changes in English overtime and an insight into other languages, patios, pidgins and creoles.

David Crystal - Texting: the gr8 db8 - not sure I spelt that right and too lazy to check!  Sloppy, and could be said to be the 'damp spoon' effect!  Well OK I checked and that is correct. I enjoyed this book, not sure all the research made sense, but I did enjoy the humour. 

I am looking forward now to John Humphrys - Lost in words.  I am curious about his prescriptivist views and think it might make an interesting read and a nice addition to my little collection of linguistic/language books.  Would have loved to have put my paws on Bernard Lamb's Queen's English too, but Waterstones here is not chucking it out cheap....yet!!

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