How to use this Page

Wow - yesterday's post generated 76 LJ comments overnight. I think that may be a record. They are fascinating to read through. Thank you everyone for sharing your opinion about this.

After dinner last night, I wrote back to her. I decided that this was indeed a "teachable moment" and if I was going to complain about emails like this, I should reach out and try to help. MySpace said Courtney was online when I sent it.

"Dear Courtney,

Are you sure that you want to write a "different" paper? Because I have a very interesting idea if you do.

Sincerely,
Laurie Halse Anderson

PS - When you write back, please don't use the abbreviations you use when texting your friends. I really love English, punctuation and all. Yes, I know it's a pain, but that's what you have to deal with if you write to an author."

So far, she hasn't written back. I suspect she won't because I am certain the paper was due yesterday.

I think I need a new page on the web site. I could title it: "kan i rite 2 u?" The page will explain the no-homework policy and give kids the basic facts they want for papers as well as links to more information. And it will gently point out the differences between formal and informal writing styles.

As to srtajustice's post about language evolution, I am tempted to agree, but I think it is too soon to tell. The technology that is fueling these abbreviations and linguistic short-cuts is itself rapidly evolving. I don't think the teenagers in ten years will be using the same kinds of phones or IMing to communicate, so I don't think this language will stick around.

I predict that in ten years, the FaceBook equivalent will have groups called "u gru up in teh 00s if u rite lik dis." And people will chuckle fondly.

Have any of you shared this with your students? What did they say?
Any last thoughts?

I am a huge word geek (show love for the linguistics majors, my friends) and one of my favorite things is collective nouns. So I am all over this Friday Five:

What would be a good collective name for your family, as in “A _____ of Joneses?”
We are a hug of Halse-Anderson-Larrabees.

What would be a good collective name for your closest group of friends?
Ummm... a babble of buddies.

What would be a good collective name for the stuff in your desk?
A despair of detritus.

What would be a good collective name for your next-door neighbors?
A glower of strangers.

What would be a good collective name for the people in your line of work, as in “A _____ of accountants?”
I am stuck here. Which do you like best?
1. A scribble of authors.
2. A shelf of authors.
3. An imagination of authors.

What are your Friday Five today?

Meg Rosoff: YA author? Adult author? Does it matter? Tell me true.

By Anatoly Liberman

Thanks to the correspondents who commented on the earlier posts. Some time ago, in discussing the origin of Georgia cracker, I could only refer to some inconclusive derivations of this slang phrase. Craig Apple writes: “My understanding (and I absolutely can not document this) was that a ‘cracker’ was a turpentine distiller, the process of rendering turpentine from pine tar being analogous to the cracking of crude oil to produce, say, gasoline. Crackers… went off alone into the woods for months to boil pine tar—they came out with a wagon full of casks…. So, like ‘redneck’ it became a general term of opprobrium for poor rural whites.” (more…)

Share This

By Anatoly Liberman

Even a quick look at the history of words meaning “break” shows how often they begin with the sound group br-. Break has cognates in several Germanic languages. The main Old Scandinavian verb was different (compare Modern Swedish brytta, Norwegian brytte, and so forth), but it, too, began with br-. A verb related to brytta existed in Old English (breotan). (more…)

Share This