Speech peculiarities in Russian jokes

Feb 10, 2011 by

To stay on the topic of Russian jokes (anekdoty), let me make an observation about such jokes that involve various ethnic characters. But first a disclaimer: although such jokes would be very un-PC in the U.S., they are very popular...

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Are Caucasians from the Caucasus?

Oct 1, 2010 by

Occasionally when filling out one form or another I run into the question of race and one of the multiple choice answers which says “Caucasian”. Of course, in modern American English usage, that term refers to the...

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NT PRNCNG VWLS?

Apr 20, 2010 by

This cartoon, discussed also in yesterday’s posting, suggests that one direction in which English is going is “dropping the vowels”. Here I rush to assure the reader that this is probably not going to happen....

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