Jane Austen and slang - article in UK newspaper

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Mon Jun 10 13:42:11 UTC 2013


FYI Monitoring Popular Media: The article excerpt below from The Daily
Mail UK website includes claims about slang and Jane Austen's use of
language.

Title: The queen of modern slang: Jane Austen is revealed to have
coined phrases we use everyday
  Subtitle 01: Oxford professor revealed how much Austen has
influenced our language
  Subtitle 02: Is quoted 1,640 times in the latest edition of the
Oxford English Dictionary
  Subtitle 03: Came up with the phrase: ‘if I’ve told you once, I’ve
told you 100 times’.
Website: Mail Online dailymail.co.uk
Author: Daily Mail Reporter
Date: 26 May 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2331445/The-queen-modern-slang-Jane-Austen-revealed-coined-phrases-use-everyday.html

[Begin excerpt]
Shut up, dirt cheap and dog-tired would roll off the tongue of any
Tom, Dick or Harry today.

But you wouldn’t have expected them to flow from the pen of genteel
Jane Austen.

Now the increasing influence of Austen on contemporary English has
been highlighted.

Oxford professor Charlotte Brewer told the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye
that while Austen had a great influence on the first Oxford English
Dictionary published in 1928, she is quoted 1,640 times in the most
recent edition.

Entries include 321 phrases from her 1815 novel Emma, which includes
‘dinner-party’ and ‘brace yourself’.

She also came up with ‘if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you 100 times’.
[End excerpt]

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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