[Corpora-List] Corpus linguistics in everyday life

[Gordon and Pam Cain]

Mmmmm. Interesting.

I pointed this unfortunate turn of phrase out to my wife, who is not a linguist,
and she said it would never make her think twice -- the meaning is obvious,
though her response is cynical with the ad coming from a bank.

She did comment that what would stop her would be 'at a personal cost'. I don't
have a corpus handy to test this on, but my guess is that 'personal cost' is the
more common expression, and 'personal price' has perhaps by substitution entered
our language. Any takers with a suitable handy corpus?

Prosodies, understood and intended meanings, corpus data. . . All very
interesting.

Gordon Cain
Director of Studies
Tyndale Intensive Language Centre
Blacktown (Sydney) Australia


17/10/03 21:44:46, Martin Wynne <martin.wynne at ota.ahds.ac.uk> wrote:

>Barclays Bank need a corpus linguist. Has anyone else noticed and been
>surprised by the current advertising slogan for Barclayloan in the UK: "The
>personal loan with the personal price"?
>(e.g. at
>http://www.personal.barclays.co.uk/BRC1/jsp/brccontrol?site=pfs&task=article
>group&value=2522&target=_self)
>