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T Rex or T Redux?

  04/09/2023       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

The word often is often pronounced with a t. The below citation from Dictionary.com explains:“HOW TO PRONOUNCE OFTENOften was pronounced with a t -sound until (Continue Reading)

scolds and guardians, Word of the Day
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Language hypocrisy

  08/31/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

When we speak of contractions in English like ‘we would have’ reduced to ‘we’d’ve’ the language guardians and scolds label that ‘improper’, ‘slang’, ‘sloppy’, and (Continue Reading)

Linguistics, scolds and guardians, Uncategorized

Tracing change in a language over millennia

  09/01/2020       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Reading Medieval and Modern Greek, we see the changes from Classical to Koine Greek, phonological and morphological. Most of such tracing I’ve learned has been (Continue Reading)

grammar & language change, scolds and guardians, What I'm Reading Now

Privileging language

  07/26/2020       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

In other entries I have mentioned the privileging of Ancient Greek by the excluding of Modern Greek in the term Greek whereby we mean Ancient (Continue Reading)

grammar & language change, scolds and guardians

Less or Fewer

  07/20/2020       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Here’s a good example for those who struggle with the less and fewer distinction: fewer clothes, less clothingClothing is a mass noun, clothes are individual (Continue Reading)

scolds and guardians

To go slow or slowly into the night, doing good or well?

  03/05/2019       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

People of an authoritarian mindset require rigid rules to follow and to enforce. Others believe that rules for language are written on golden tablets in (Continue Reading)

grammar & language change, scolds and guardians

How Prescriptivism’s hidden class bias destroys understanding

  08/04/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

In French there is a feature called liaison whereby the final consonant of only certain words and word combinations attach themselves to the following word (Continue Reading)

grammar & language change, scolds and guardians

Great example of how a quotative works

  07/06/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

My grandson was speaking of a little kid in his karate class and he said, “Christian does not like not pay attention.” The first thing (Continue Reading)

Linguistics, scolds and guardians, What English Teachers Don't Know

Who is competent to investigate language?

  05/03/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

When a person wants to investigate language, they have one at hand if they are not fussy about which language they investigate. That language is (Continue Reading)

scolds and guardians

Common errors about language

  04/28/2018       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

  My intention is to introduce a series of entries here regarding the basics of fl teaching with a checklist of typical notions held by (Continue Reading)

Foreign language teaching & learning, grammar & language change, Linguistics, scolds and guardians

McWhorter on Black English

  05/28/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

C-Span had McWhorter discussing his book, Back Talk, Black Talk. In his talk he laid out, in his usual fashion, the structure of discourse on (Continue Reading)

grammar & language change, Linguistics, scolds and guardians, What English Teachers Don't Know

Is this a considered judgment or just an attitude?

  05/23/2017       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

One of the most highly recommended textbooks on Old English is by Bruce Mitchell. Mitchell apparently has little use for poetry that falls outside the (Continue Reading)

scolds and guardians

Distinguishing among shamans, mavens, scolds, and guardians

  07/18/2016       Pat Barrett      1 Comment

The best moments when you’re a teacher is when you’re laying back and the kids are making the connections for themselves and all you do (Continue Reading)

scolds and guardians

Who will guard the guards? I will.

  07/12/2016       Pat Barrett      1 Comment

Soon to come to this blog site is a lengthy review of John Simon’s execrable piece of trash, Paradigms Lost. It is an absolute treasure (Continue Reading)

Foreign language teaching & learning, scolds and guardians

I think I can…. I think I can…..

  09/14/2015       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Terry is getting to something that has been sticking in my craw for some time. That is not the exact meaning I am looking for, (Continue Reading)

scolds and guardians

Exploring prescription and Prescriptivism

  10/28/2014       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Let’s clear up a terminological confusion first. We all prescribe. Whenever we mark a double negative in a book report turned in by a student, (Continue Reading)

Autism, scolds and guardians, Shamans

Backup to Ellen Shrager’s time-table

  05/14/2013       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I’m usually suspicious of claims about “kids nowadays”. Ellen Shrager has presented on the change she has seen in the kids we teach and I (Continue Reading)

scolds and guardians

Kids These Days – The Millenial Generation

  05/28/2011       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Too bad I don’t participate in flteach anymore; this article does a good job of showing how DIFFERENT is often interpreted as inferior. Because young (Continue Reading)

scolds and guardians

Is this person in touch with “kids these days”?

  04/10/2010       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I just read this advertisement on a listserv. I fully expected to read that Generation C students were cretins or crappy or some such but (Continue Reading)

scolds and guardians

Was there something magical about 1997?

  04/05/2010       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

One of the astounding elements of Ellen Shrager’s excellent excursion into what makes “kids these days” seem different from when “we” were in school (1938 (Continue Reading)

scolds and guardians

What HAS changed in the last 30 years?

  08/16/2009       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Here’s a quote from the NYT magazine today, Aug. 16, about how things might change over a 30 year period: “It’s hard to argue that (Continue Reading)

scolds and guardians
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