London Language

vowel surgery - 'waking up posh'

Telegraph — Boy wakes up with 'posh' accent

This is the story of a boy who had brain surgery and now speaks with a different accent from the one he had before the operation.

Billy

the gr8 db8r strikes again

Guardian — Gr8 db8r takes on linguistic luddites

David Crystal is still standing up for change and creativity and against prescriptivism. Here's a bit of what he has to say:

'Almost every basic principle that people hold about texting turns out to be misconceived. Misspelling isn't universal: analysis shows that only 10% of words used in texts are misspelt. Nor are most texts sent by kids: 80% are sent by businesses and adults. Likewise, there is no evidence that texting teaches people to spell badly: rather, research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language'

I also think it's gr8 that his book was reviewed in Take a Break magazine

Billy