Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Isn't it?

So the subject of this post is somewhat outside my range of knowledge in a few ways, but I've appreciated this enough to think it's worth posting. Anyone familiar with modern British adolescent slang or with language attitudes concerning them ought to find this rather entertaining. It's a series of skits placing the modern jargon in the mouths of WWII era RAF pilots. Of course, a lot of the humor comes from a "kids these days" chicken little attitude toward language change, but the contrast is so striking that you should be able to chuckle no matter what your personal or professional attitude towards such attitudes is.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

A natural misunderstanding

This is a story relevant to this blog about the effect of common ground, or lack thereof, on phonological processing and context driven disambiguation.

When my grandmother asked me why my brother wasn't at dinner, we had this exchange.

Me: Well, I think he's probably taking it easy at home, kicking back, looking at some blogs.

Grandmom: You're fresh alright!

Me: What? Why?

Grandmom: I guess it's a natural thing for him to do. Don't you look at the blonds?

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