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)
Pat’s Polemics
On-going brilliance
Language hypocrisy
08/31/2022 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhen 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)
Tracing change in a language over millennia
09/01/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentReading 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)
Privileging language
07/26/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentIn 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)
Less or Fewer
07/20/2020 Pat Barrett Add CommentHere’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)
To go slow or slowly into the night, doing good or well?
03/05/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentPeople 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)
How Prescriptivism’s hidden class bias destroys understanding
08/04/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentIn 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)
Great example of how a quotative works
07/06/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentMy 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)
Who is competent to investigate language?
05/03/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhen 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)
Common errors about language
04/28/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentMy 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)
McWhorter on Black English
05/28/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentC-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)
Is this a considered judgment or just an attitude?
05/23/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentOne 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)
Distinguishing among shamans, mavens, scolds, and guardians
07/18/2016 Pat Barrett 1 CommentThe 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)
Who will guard the guards? I will.
07/12/2016 Pat Barrett 1 CommentSoon 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)
I think I can…. I think I can…..
09/14/2015 Pat Barrett Add CommentTerry 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)
Exploring prescription and Prescriptivism
10/28/2014 Pat Barrett Add CommentLet’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)
Backup to Ellen Shrager’s time-table
05/14/2013 Pat Barrett Add CommentI’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)
Kids These Days – The Millenial Generation
05/28/2011 Pat Barrett Add CommentToo 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)
Is this person in touch with “kids these days”?
04/10/2010 Pat Barrett Add CommentI 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)
Was there something magical about 1997?
04/05/2010 Pat Barrett Add CommentOne 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)
What HAS changed in the last 30 years?
08/16/2009 Pat Barrett Add CommentHere’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)