Retake the oath? – Dust yourself off …

When the most powerful man on the planet takes office and by doing so becomes just that (most powerful), how could it not draw all sorts of commentary from all sides. I’ll restrict myself to what one can learn from the pages of the Language Log.
There is an interesting discussion on the flub Obama, or […]

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Linguistic taboos protecting corrupt officials

Sehr schöne Beobachtung wieder mal im Language Log (schon vor ein paar Tagen):
Linguistic taboos protecting corrupt officials
Americans don’t think well of people who talk like this when they have important roles in public life. That means that a small additional offense by such individuals may go unnoticed: their hypocrisy in being elected on fair words […]

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John Updike on Obama

In a conversation with NYT Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, John Updike uses an intriguing neologism to describe Obama’s social skills. Updike thinks that the president-elect displays a certain “reaching-outness” (approx. 3:50 in the following video). – How would you spell it, with or without the hyphen? Or put another hyphen in front of “ness”?
The […]

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