The whole story…

Sep 14, 2011 by

In several previous postings, I discussed the derivation of the Old Novgorod form KѢLЪ and its Modern Russian cognate CELYJ, especially in connection with the first consonant (/k/ vs/ /ts/). But what about its English cognate, whole...

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To boldly go…

Dec 15, 2010 by

One of the “poisonous tomatoes” of the English grammar — constructions widely-used by speakers (and writers) but frequently castigated by prescriptive grammarians — is the so-called split infinitive, where an...

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Full stop. Period!

Oct 20, 2010 by

Some time ago I wrote a posting on the use of spaces to separate words in writing. One of my students asked me when punctuation was introduced for further clarification of meaning. As it turns out, not until recently. Several marks...

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Give me some space!

Oct 5, 2010 by

In yesterday’s posting, I mentioned that medieval manuscripts and inscriptions often used a line over the top of an abbreviation or an acronym to mark them as such. This was illustrated with the Kirkdale sundial. Another...

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So how hard can it be, learning a new language?

Jun 11, 2010 by

Some time ago I was asked by a former student of mine if there is a scientific confirmation to the idea that speakers of certain languages may find it difficult, if not impossible, to learn a certain other language. Or perhaps...

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