According to research presented at the Sociolinguistics Symposium, children start swearing at a much earlier age than they did a few decades ago. (Seemingly in the UK kids start swearing at the age of 4! In the 1980s most children didn't start to swear until they were 13.  (I don't think I swore until I […]

A couple of days ago someone wrote to me and asked if I had heard of 'Corpus Linguistics'.  The first thing that popped into my head was "dead words".  (Corpus - corpse / linguistics - words).  In my mind's eye I saw a load of words lying around, unloved and unused, dying or dead.   […]

A linguistics expert has rejected claims that texting by mobile phone is bad for language and literacy skills. Professor David Crystal argues that such condensed messages enhance and enrich language skills. He called it an "urban myth" that school work was riddled with text speech, and said in fact students knew when to use it […]