pet peeves

[Lynne Murphy]

Another plug for my own blog (but it also links to other commentators on
it):

<http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2011/07/anti-americanismism.html>

I've replied to the principle of the thing and the first 25 items--the next
25 to come after I've finished reading student work.  Which is, of course,
much better researched than the BBC piece!

--On 21 July 2011 00:10 +0100 victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> BBC finally put up its list of 50 "offensive" or "irritating" Americanisms
> and it's every bit as ridiculous as was expected. Mark Liberman covered
> the initial article on LL and Pullum followed up with a post on the 50.
> It's hard not to read it without laughing--it's reminiscent of early days
> of Wikipedia in that the information is unverified, at best, and
> represents mostly very personal, non-extendable views.
>
> http://goo.gl/sSb0n
>
> High-school newspapers have better researched pieces. (Note, in
> particular, that a substantial number of selections come from US-based
> correspondents and obvious ESL correspondents.) The list tops off with "I
> could care less" as one such "Americanism".
>
> VS-)



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics
Director of English Language and Linguistics
School of English
Arts B348
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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