'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'. From Alice in Wonderland by Charles Dodson, AKA Lewis Carroll One fundamental element of language is that the words have the same meanings for everyone using that language. On the other hand, metaphorical and ironic uses of words are common and are meaningful, and languages evolve, in part, by people using words in different ways. Some people use words ...
It is said that English has more words than any other language. I have not counted all the words in every language, so I don’t know for sure, but I have read things to that effect enough time that I have come to believe it. Even with all those words, it is possible that some have been missed, words that should be in the language but are not. I started this after I saw the freshly coined word “islamophobia” in the head line of an editorial (I really should stop reading newspapers). ...
Updated 09-23-2015 at 01:27 PM by PeterL
Some People Do Drop Their R’s It has been said many times that New Englanders drop their R’s, but it is not true. I knew a little about linguistics, but not all that much, and even my maternal unit, who was a fairly good linguist opined that New England accents dropped R’s. Who was I to disagree? So there I was in Lebanon, New Hampshire working with a guy from South Carolina, a guy from West Virginia, and the regional manager was from Maine. The South Carolinian ...