online accent quiz

[Mark A. Mandel]

Quoted from Language Log
(http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000713.html), by Mark
Liberman, April 6, 2004:
>>>

I hate this role of correcting elementary errors of linguistic analysis, or
questioning unthinking prescriptions that are logically incoherent,
factually wrong and promptly disobeyed by the prescriber. Historians aren't
constantly confronted with people who carry on self-confidently about the
rule against adultery in the sixth amendment to the Declamation of
Independence, as written by Benjamin Hamilton. Computer scientists aren't
always having to correct people who make bold assertions about the value of
Objectivist Programming, as examplified in the HCNL entities stored in
Relaxational Databases. The trouble is, most people are much more ignorant
about language than they are about history or computer science, but they
reckon that because they can talk and read and write, their opinions about
talking and reading and writing are as well informed as anybody's. And since
I have DNA, I'm entitled to carry on at length about genetics without
bothering to learn anything about it. Not.

<<<

What he said.

-- Mark A. Mandel
[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]

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