Third excerpt from You Are What You Speak: Do even New Yorkers find New York accents annoying?

February 23, 2011

You Are What You Speak Excerpt – New York English

Language and the Arab revolt

February 22, 2011

Language has played a fascinating role in the uprisings in the middle east. I look at Hosni Mubarak’s stuffy formal Arabic here, note the irony that his name shares a root with “congratulations” and with “Barack” here, debunk a slightly silly statement by Nick Kristof about Arabic here, and explain how to pronounce “Tahrir” here. Moving away from Egypt, I took another look at Arabic speech-styles–this time Saif al-Islam Qaddafi’s–here.

Second excerpt, from “A brief history of sticklers”

February 17, 2011

You Are What You Speak by Robert Lane Greene: An Excerpt

OMG I am the guru of acronyms, it seems

This piece I wrote about OMG, LOL and so forth got me quoted by the AP here, and this morning led to a lovely conversation with Wisconsin Public Radio.

First excerpt!

February 8, 2011

You Are What You Speak Excerpt

YOU ARE WHAT YOU SPEAK

February 7, 2011

You Are What You SpeakAn Editors’ Choice in the New York Times Book Review

"A flinty, fact-packed fun-house of a book" – John McWhorter, author of Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue and Losing the Race, from the Foreword.

"An engaging new look at our language and the way people use it, filled with insight and informative tidbits." – Steven Pinker, Harvard University, author of The Language Instinct, Words and Rules, and The Stuff of Thought

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