Jolly Wicked Actually

Here's a link to a piece in last month's Sunday Times extracted from the linguist Tony Thorne's new book on British slang, Jolly Wicked Actually and how it reflects our national identity/ies. Tony did a great talk on slang at SFX last year and he is one of the top experts on the history and changing nature of British slang, so it's well worth a look.

Here's an extract about the expression innit:

By the end of the 1980s, innit — the unvarying question tag put on the end of sentences and used separately as an exclamation of agreement, “Innit!” — had become identified especially with black-British and later Asian-British speech patterns. So much so that, in the mid-1990s, my students at King’s College London were referring to their Asian fellows collectively as “the innit crowd”; and when Sacha Baron Cohen’s comic character Ali G parodied Asian and white “wiggas” (imitators of black styles), innit was incorporated in the title of a 1999 collection of TV shows. Since 2000, innit has been seen as one of the most recognisable features of “Hinglish” — south Asian English — and of multiethnic youth dialect, supposedly a new accent and vocabulary common to younger speakers across a range of ethnicities and mainly urban environments, which may eventually influence mainstream English. It is also seen as emblematic of the troublesome underclass known as chavs, and in 2005 jokes were circulating playing on the fact: “What do you call a chav in a box? Innit.” And: “What do you call an Eskimo chav? Inuinnit.”

And here's a link to arch-prescriptivist Lynne Truss's rather sniffy review of it.

CAPS LOCK AND SHOUTY MESSAGES

Sitting in my swivel chair while rubbing chalk dust from my scruffy tweed jacket's leather elbow patches, I've often told my A level Language students that writing about graphology is the last refuge of the loser. That if you write about graphology in an exam you would be best to write "Loser" as your name on the paper and write in the words "epic fail" where examiners should put their marks. We can all see that a heading is in bold to make it stand out, that a picture is centred to give it prominence, that the font is Times New Roman: none of that is language analysis and it's not worth any marks in exams. Loser.

But with Language & Mode now an AS level topic area, perhaps that's no longer the case. Graphology - the layout of words, images and headings on a page, the way things look on the page - is actually quite important when looking at differences between written and blended mode texts. The fact that a word on a web page is underlined might mean that it's a clickable link and therefore an interactive feature. The choice of font might actually convey some kind of tone too. And this piece on the BBC News website makes a number of interesting points about what we think about capital letters in emails or on web forums. As the piece tells us:

Most web users know capital letters are a capital offence - they're commonly thought to be online shorthand for screaming. But how did they get this reputation?

Ultimately, in the rushed world of online communication, all-caps has become a
bit of a "lazy" shorthand for yelling - it's faster than finding another way to
convey excitement or agitation. But the recipient feels like they are being
shouted at.

So, there's stuff here to think about for graphology and what it tells us about how we're being addressed by the writer of a text. The article also goes on to talk about different fonts and the history of some of them, which is interesting in a bit of a nerdy way, but it's the discussion of email etiquette and caps which is most useful, I think. So, graphology might now become quite an intelligent thing to write about in such situations. I take it all back: graphology is no longer the last refuge of the loser. Sorry.

JV Football Blast Mustangs

The JV Football team hit the road for the first time in 2009 on Wednesday night as they traveled to Middle Creek High School to take on the Mustangs.

The contest was played on Wednesday due to to Middle Creek having open house on Thursday night, but it didn't matter what night they played on, the Trojans dominated Middle Creek from the opening kickoff en route to a 34-0 blasting of the Mustangs.

Garner's win move them to 2-0 on the young season as they return home next Thursday night at 7:00 when they host Riverside at Trojan Stadium.

Bryan LP Gas
The Official Propane Supplier of the Trojans
Bill and Randy Bryan, 772-4868

Lady Trojan Tennis Back on the Court

The Lady Trojan Tennis team has started their season and Coach Walls is looking forward to another very successful season. Garner has already started the season and coming into play on Wednesday night, Garner was 1-2 overall and 1-1 inside Greater Neuse River Conference Play.

Listed Below are the results from the first three matches. Also, for a complete roster, please visit the Women's Tennis page at the right of your screen.


2009 Women’s Tennis Scores


Millbrook 9
Garner 0

Singles:
E. White (M) def. C. Nickalson (G) 6-1, 6-0
C. Brown (M) def. E. Chalk (G) 6-0, 6-0
M. Eldridge (M) def. E. Coln (G) 6-1, 6-0
A. Adcroft (M) def. A. Ruiz (G) 6-1, 6-1
C. Weber (M) def. M. Stewart (G) 6-0, 6-1
T. Crain (M) def. K. King (G) 6-0, 6-1
Doubles:
White/Adcroft (M) def. Nickalson/Chalk (G) 8-0
Brown/Weber (M) def. Coln/C. Walton (G) 8-0
Eldridge/Moses (M) def. Ruiz/Stewart (G) 8-2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
West Johnston 3
Garner 6
Singles:
B. Shearin (WJ) def. C. NIckalson (G) 7-5, 6-4
G. Langdon (WJ) def. E. Coln (G) 6-4, 6-2
A. Ruiz (G) def. A. Ennis (WJ) 6-4, 7-5
M. Stewart (G) def. A. Ahearn (WJ) 6-2, 6-2
K. King (G) def. A. Powers (WJ) 6-4, 6-3
C. Walton (G) def. M. Pullium (WJ) 6-2, 0-6, 6-2
Doubles:
Nickalson/Coln (G) def. Shearin/Ahearn (WJ) 9-8 (8-6)
Langdon/Ennis (WJ) Ruiz/Stewart (G) 8-4
King/Walton (G) def. Powers/Pullium (WJ) 8-6

Beverly McLaughlin and Bria Goggins added an 8-6 win in exhibition doubles and Taylor Vess added an 8-5 win in exhibition singles.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Clayton 9
Garner 0

Singles:
Z. Littman (C) def. C. Nickalson (G) 6-1, 6-2
K. Durham (C) def. E. Chalk (G) 6-3, 6-2
K. Edwards (C) def. A. Ruiz (G) 6-3, 6-2
P. Morrison (C) def. M. Stewart (G) 6-2, 6-3
H. Gostiger (C) def. K. King (G) 6-2, 6-0
J. Guha (C) def. C. Walton (G) 6-1, 6-3

Doubles:
Littman/Durham (C) def. Nickalson/Chalk (G) 8-1
Edwards/Morrison (C) def. Ruiz/Stewart (G) 8-2
Gostiger/Guha (C) def. King/Walton (G) 8-3

Weasel words

Today's Independent features an article by columnist Johann Hari on the euphemisms he would expunge from the English Language. As he puts it, "The English language needs periodically to be given a spring-clean, where we scrape off the phrases that have become stuck to the floor and toss out the rotting metaphors that have fallen down the back of the settee".

Among the expressions are "fair trade", of which he says:

This phrase suggests that paying desperately poor people a decent wage is a nice
ethical add-on, and a gratifying departure from the norm. In fact, it should be
taken for granted – the default position of civilised human beings. If we
believed that, the labelling would be reversed: it's all the other food that
should be labelled as "Unfair Trade", "Rapacious Trade", or
"Let's-Pay-a-Pittance Trade." The terrific comedian Andy Zaltzman suggests a sign
that could be on the packets: it is a silhouette of an obese businessman pissing
on an African child.

Fair enough. But several comments in response to the article accuse Hari of doing exactly the same thing that he's complaining about: giving a political spin to the language he uses and the meanings he creates. So, is any language genuinely neutral? Can we open our mouths and speak without allowing our language choices to inadvertently reflect our views and political/ philosophical outlooks?

Again, this is an interesting article not only for the language issues addressed but for its potential use as a style model for the text you'll be writing about a language issue in your ENGA4 coursework and the Language Discourses part of the ENGA3 exam paper.

For more on euphemisms - what they are, how they're often used and why they annoy people - try this 2007 post on the blog.

Volleyball Sweeps Wildcats for First Win of 09

The Volleyball teams were back at home on Tuesday night as they hosted West Johnston for the first Greater Neuse River Conference match of the year.

The Varsity Volleyball team dropped the first set of the match, 25-16 to the Wildcats but rallied to win the next three games, 25-11, 25-16, 28-26, which gave the Trojans the 3 games to 1 win.

Garner's victory was the first of 2009 as they improve to 1-0 in the Conference.


JV Also Winners

The JV Volleyball team preceded the Varsity with their first win of 2009 as they swept the Wildcats 2 games to none winning game one, 25-5 and game two 25-15.

Both teams are back in action on Thursday at Clayton, the JV game will begin at 4:30 and the Varsity will follow at 5:30

Texting is retarding our teens

It's true! It must be, because a neuroscientist is saying it's true. In this article by Michael Deacon from The Daily Telegraph, Baroness Greenfield is reported as blaming young people's alleged short attention spans on the brevity of text messaging. Deacon himself has strong views about texting, telling us that "If everyone in the world keeps texting, we'll all become as mentally stunted as each other, and so nobody will even notice that there's been a narrowing of the human attention span."

And in this piece from The Daily Mail, Greenfield offers more detail about her opinions. In one interesting part of it she says:

I believe that if the young brain is exposed from the outset to a world of instant action and reaction with the press of a key, such rapid interchanges might accustom the brain to operate over the same timescales.
The young brain, particularly until the age of ten, is incredibly impressionable. It is without the yardsticks we gain on our way to adulthood and against which we measure information. The young brain simply absorbs information and is shaped by it.
That's why, if a child learns to express themselves through text messaging - and at the same time reads less, writes less and communicates face-to-face less often - there is a case for questioning how it will impact not only on the way they communicate in later life, but also on the way their brain matures.

So, what do you think? Can you think at all? Have you been exposed to so much text messaging and such short, undeveloped fragments of language that you can't express yourself in complex sentences any more? Have you even read this far?
I'd be interested what readers of this blog have to say on this issue, partly because blogs are about sharing ideas and learning collaboratively, but also because at the end of next year many of you will be taking ENGA3 in which you'll have to think about, analyse and critique language debates such as this one.
 Greenfield, in the Daily Mail, uses the metaphor of language being "eroded" by texting, eaten away, reduced in some way. It's a metaphor that will soon be familiar to A2 students as we look at models of language change and arguments about such change - prescriptive and descriptive - and how we can explore where English is heading.
Along with ENGA3, you'll also be doing ENGA4 in which you'll need to write a creative piece about one of the topics you've studied for ENGA3. So, the Michael Deacon article in the Telegraph or the Baroness Greenfield one in the Mail can be really helpful style models for how critics of language change structure and express their ideas and arguments.