Lexis

Lexis

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Lexis episodes

  • Episode 27 - MLE in the Media special


    Show notes for Episode 27 Here are the show notes for Episode 27, an MLE in the media special, in which we talk to Dr Matt Hunt Gardner from the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, University of Oxford about recent stories and articles on Multicultural London English and look at the language, the views, the framing and the timing of those pieces in a bit more detail. Matt Hunt Gardner’s website: https://www.matthuntgardner.com/ Matt’s pages at University of Oxford: https://www.ling-phil.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-matt-hunt-gardner Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/matthuntgardner The articles themselves The Telegraph Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1536696753717665792 The Telegraph piece: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/13/wagwan-street-slang-britains-main-dialect/ The Guardian piece: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/14/wagwan-why-are-more-and-more-britons-speaking-multicultural-london-english The Mail Online piece: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10921527/Wagwan-language-urban-dialect-takes-IRAM-RAMZAN-says-not-change-good.html Some selected Mail Online comments: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dx0UfZPxEAXxjX9abBNtyCGz6SRo_BlL/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110439791983693362630&rtpof=true&sd=true Evening Standard piece: https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/britain-london-slang-accents-regional-diversity-lenny-henry-b1006546.html The i piece: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/multicultural-london-english-dialect-40-years-old-middle-class-britain-terrified-1690448 Other sources on MLE: Multicultural London English – part 1 The 'M' in 'MLE' – Youth Slang's Origins | tony thorne Old MLE complaints from EngLangBlog: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RNLPjiCIv4X8Pw_VhLzSbj6olcISUn_1/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110439791983693362630&rtpof=true&sd=true Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys


    Note: a better audio version of this was uploaded on Nov 30th 2022

    38 min
  • Episode 26 - Robert McKenzie and Speaking of Prejudice

    Show notes for Episode 26

    Here are the show notes for Episode 26, in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk to Dr Robert McKenzie of Northumbria University about implicit biases in accent attitudes, the benefits of approaching language study with a multidisciplinary approach and the Speaking of Prejudice project.

    Robert McKenzie’s Northumbria University webpage https://researchportal.northumbria.ac.uk/en/persons/robert-mckenzie

    The Speaking of Prejudice project website: https://research.northumbria.ac.uk/languageattitudesengland/

    Student resources from Speaking of Prejudice project: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10ui8etPOB2z2OvO6k2ebTIe-56t24rHR/view?usp=sharing

    Speaking of Prejudice on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpeechPrejudice

    Robert McKenzie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/robertm98205445

    Teacher resources from Speaking of Prejudice project:

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CjuWwWJHMupN_ZRB1CRjQKFo2ZgraZGk/view?usp=sharing

    The British Academy showcase event can be found here: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/british-academy-summer-showcase-2022/programme-exhibits/

    The forthcoming book: https://www.routledge.com/Implicit-and-Explicit-Language-Attitudes-Mapping-Linguistic-Prejudice-and/McKenzie-McNeill/p/book/9780367703530 

    Robert’s book recommendations:

    Language Myths by Laurie Bauer

    and

    English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the U

    Contact us @LexisPodcast.  Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify

    Contributors

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Music: Freenotes

    End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

    40 min
  • Episode 25 - the OED

    Here are the show notes for Episode 25, in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk to Fiona McPherson and Freia Reimink-Layfield about their work on the OED: how they view the role of dictionaries, expand their pool of sources and reassess word definitions as time goes by.

    OED100: Repainting the dictionary

    https://public.oed.com/blog/oed100-repainting-the-dictionary/

    Blog | Oxford English Dictionary

    Varieties of English Archives | Oxford English Dictionary

    Lang in the News

    Man arrested for allegedly threatening Merriam-Webster over definition of female - ABC News

    Man arrested for threatening to 'bomb' Merriam-Webster over trans-inclusive definitions

    A corpus-based approach to discourses of refugees and asylum seekers in UN and newspaper texts. - Research Portal | Lancaster University

    Cameron, Deborah. and Shaw, Sylvia. (2016). Gender, Power and Political Speech: Women and Language in the 2015 UK General Election - Research Portal | Lancaster University

    'I want a voice that fits me': teenager's quest for communication aid with Walsall accent

    Contact us @LexisPodcast.  Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify

    Contributors

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Music: Freenotes

    End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

    45 min
  • Episode 24 - Kamran Khan

    Show notes for Episode 24

    Here are the show notes for Episode 24, in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk to Dr Kamran Khan of the University of Copenhagen about security studies, discourses around refugees and Muslims and the role of language in national identity, especially around language testing and citizenship.

    Kamran Khan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SecurityLing

    Kamran’s ResearchGate page: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kamran-Khan-45

    https://archive.discoversociety.org/2020/01/08/the-counter-extremism-shift-in-esol-policy-and-the-double-securitisation-of-muslims/ 

    The New York Times’ Trojan Horse Affair podcast can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/podcasts/trojan-horse-affair.html

    Lang in the News

    We talked about this paper by Ian Cushing and Julia Snell:

    https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-in-society/article/white-ears-of-ofsted-a-raciolinguistic-perspective-on-the-listening-practices-of-the-schools-inspectorate/E6ECBB4A5DDE794CD44270C67CAEDF19

    You can read more about it here (check out the comments and Ian’s patient replies too!):

    https://theconversation.com/ofsted-has-been-dictating-what-proper-english-is-heres-why-thats-a-problem-176742

    And we refer to the TES article that you can find here: https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/does-ofsted-have-problem-language-policing

    LancsBox is here: http://corpora.lancs.ac.uk/lancsbox/download.php

    Contact us @LexisPodcast.  Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify

    Contributors

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Music: Freenotes

    End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

    46 min
  • Episode 23 - Gareth Carrol
    Show notes for Episode 23
    Here are the show notes for Episode 23, in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk to Dr Gareth Carrol of Birmingham University about his new book, Jumping Sharks and Dropping Mics and about modern idioms - where they come from, how they work and how they spread into popular discourse.
    Jumping Sharks and Dropping Mics: modern idioms and where they come from website: Jumping sharks and dropping mics from Iff Books
    Modern Idioms on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Modern_Idioms
    Gareth Carrol on Twitter: https://twitter.com/garethcarrol
    Dan was out of practice and forgot to send Gareth our usual quickfire questions so here are his answers:
    Favourite book – “Through the Language Glass” by Guy Deutscher. It’s a really accessible take on the Language and Thought (Sapir-Whorf) debate, with some fascinating evidence and examples. Honourable mention goes to “Is That a Fish in Your Ear? The Amazing Adventure of Translation” by David Bellos.
    Favourite fact / idea – that being bilingual is the norm, not the exception in the world (over half the world’s population speaks more than one language).
    Advice to a budding linguist – be as flexible as you can in how you think about language (and anything else really). There is so much room for fuzziness/variation/ambiguity in how we think about language, and seeing it in these terms (rather than trying to be too rigid and look for clean answers) is a great help in understanding the whole picture.
    For anyone who hasn’t heard the expression ‘as bent as a nine bob note’: https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/as+bent+as+a+nine-bob+note
    Lang in the News
    Accents
    Customer asks for refund from York Theatre Royal because actors performed play in Yorkshire accents
    Child refugees in city to learn Hull accent and sayings including 'larkin out'
    Big piece about accents in The Times in March
    What does your accent say about you? | Times2 | The Times
    Several related stories, some featuring criticism of Amanda Cole and her Essex colleagues:
    Their blog here:
    Ask or aks? How linguistic prejudice perpetuates inequality | Blog | University of Essex
    University specialists say there is no such thing as 'correct' language and terminology | Daily Mail Online
    https://twitter.com/DrAmandaCole/status/1506182631783866368
    LBC Vanessa Feltz interview with Amanda Cole: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bqyvm6 (from 02:16:30 onwards)
    Ann Widdecombe in the Daily Express linked here: https://twitter.com/EngLangBlog/status/1506727875134869514
    "ACCORDING to academics at the University of Essex there is no such thing as correct language, pronunciation or terminology. Instead they advocate what amounts to linguistic anarchy with anything acceptable such as pronouncing "ask" as "aks" and dismiss any standardisation of usage as "prejudice".
    Unfortunately for the students, employers who are looking for articulate applicants with a good command of the language will be perfectly happy to exhibit such prejudice and to choose someone who does not use "like" a dozen times in almost as
    many words."
    Anti-Welsh accent prejudice here:
    https://twitter.com/ElunedAnderson/status/1506015005027807237
    Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
    Contributors
    Matthew Butler
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
    Lisa Casey
    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
    Dan Clayton
    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
    Jacky Glancey
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
    Music: Freenotes
    End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
    49 min
  • Episode 22 - Katie Edwards
    Show notes for Episode 22
    Here are the show notes for Episode 22, in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk to Dr Katie Edwards about grammar pedantry, accent shaming and why ‘grammar nazis’ need to get a life (and a new name).
    Warning: this episode contains some explicit language!
    Katie Edwards’ website: https://www.katiebedwards.com/
    Katie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/KatieBEdwards
    Katie’s (fairly) recent language articles (some of which we discuss):
    Gerraway with accentism – I’m proud to speak Yorkshire | Katie Edwards
    No, You’re Shit: Grammar Pedantry and Knowing Your Place
    Putting the Accent On Prejudice. Rather than being yet another way to… | by Katie Edwards | Medium
    Katie refers to ‘The Apostrophiser’, the grammar vigilante: Meet the 'Grammar Vigilante' of Bristol
    Jeremy Paxman’s comments about grammar were “People who care about grammar are regularly characterised as pedants. I say that those who don’t care about it shouldn’t be surprised if we pay no attention to anything they say — if indeed they’re aware of what they’re trying to say.” (from here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-pedant-8kpmpkc8x08)
    Katie’s reading recommendation is Speaking Up: Understanding Language and Gender by Allyson Yule: http://allysonjule.com/books/speaking-up/
    The letter to The Guardian about ‘talking properly’ that we discuss:
    The ‘slang ban’ story that provoked the letter: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/sep/30/oh-my-days-linguists-lament-slang-ban-in-london-school
    A thread Dan did on the problems with this letter: https://twitter.com/EngLangBlog/status/1446358649635549206
    An article Dan wrote for emagazine about school ‘slang bans’: https://www.dropbox.com/s/81efwb4qfazopns/school%20rules%20article%20final.pdf?dl=0
    You can follow Katie’s work by signing up here: https://katieedwards.substack.com/
    Katie’s favourite book about language was this: http://allysonjule.com/books/speaking-up/
    Language in the News
    The older ‘slang ban’ stories can be found here: https://englishlangsfx.blogspot.com/search?q=slang+ban
    The Mail’s coverage of the recent south London academy story:
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10047177/Oh-days-School-bans-slang-terms-like-bare-raise-literacy-standards.html
    Some of the comments that followed the Mail piece: https://twitter.com/mmgiovanelli/status/1444395623315353613
    Marcello Giovanelli on Channel 5 News discussing the story and others: https://twitter.com/5_News/status/1444000068118458369
    Aston University Sociology style guide story in the Times:
    Some of the comments that followed the story on Aston Uni: https://twitter.com/EngLangBlog/status/1446745305777573895
    Evan Smith’s No Platform book: https://www.routledge.com/No-Platform-A-History-of-Anti-Fascism-Universities-and-the-Limits-of-Free/Smith/p/book/9781138591684
    Evan Smith interviewed on the Radikaal podcast: https://podtail.com/podcast/radikaal/12-evan-smith-on-no-platform-and-so-called-cancel-/
    Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
    Contributors
    Matthew Butler
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
    Lisa Casey
    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
    Dan Clayton
    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
    Jacky Glancey
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
    Music: Freenotes
    End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
    47 min
  • Episode 21 - Robbie Love
    Show notes for Episode 21
    Here are the show notes for Episode 21, in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk to Dr Robbie Love about his work on corpora, spoken English and how he has been looking at changes in swearing patterns in spoken English.
    🔺Warning: this episode contains explicit language!🔻
    Robbie Love’s website: https://robbielove.org/
    Robbie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lovermob
    A link to the paper in Text and Talk:
    Love, R. (2021). Swearing in informal spoken English: 1990s – 2010s. Text and Talk, 41, Special Issue: ‘Corpus Linguistics across the Generations: In Memory of Geoffrey Leech’.
    https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/text-2020-0051/html
    Some of the media coverage for Robbie’s recent research is covered in the ‘Media’ page of Robbie’s site: https://robbielove.org/media/
    Some great resources here for A level teachers and students!
    Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
    Contributors
    Matthew Butler
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
    Lisa Casey
    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
    Dan Clayton
    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
    Jacky Glancey
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
    Music: Freenotes
    48 min
  • Episode 20 - Sandra Jansen
    Show notes for Episode 20
    Here are the show notes for Episode 20, a Language in the News special, in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk to Dr Sandra Jansen of Paderborn University about linguistics stories in the media and discuss stories around accent bias, dialect change and suggestions for reading and evaluating stories about language in the media.
    Sandra Jansen’s Paderborn University page: https://www.uni-paderborn.de/en/person/66815/
    Sandra on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sj2915
    Sandra says she can send the English Today article, Predicting the Future of English, that’s mentioned in the article if you want to contact her.
    Alex Scott & Digby Jones
    Original tweets here: https://twitter.com/Digbylj/status/1421164856527437825
    Alex Scott’s response here: https://twitter.com/AlexScott/status/1421257347419213831
    Digby Chicken Caesar doubles down here: https://twitter.com/Digbylj/status/1421448009238388737
    Excellent thread from a linguist, Bethan Tovey-Walsh here: https://twitter.com/LinguaCelta/status/1421460631304146951
    And another thread (from Claire Hardaker) here: https://twitter.com/DrClaireH/status/1421398857255116801
    Longer read from Claire Hardaker: https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/drclaireh/2021/08/02/digby-lord-jones-the-man-who-took-on-linguistics-and-lost/
    Katie Edwards piece here:: https://katiebedwards.medium.com/putting-the-accent-on-prejudice-a2894d5d0670
    Deborah Cameron on the Alex Scott/Digby Jones story and attacks on women’s speech: https://debuk.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/speakin-while-female/
    Accentism thread of reader comments:
    https://twitter.com/AccentismProj/status/1421899858391228419
    Predicting Dialect change
    Full paper here: Inferring the drivers of language change using spatial models
    Summary here: Northern English verbal mannerisms being lost
    News stories here:
    Ee bah gone? How northern accents could be dead in 45 years
    Northern accents could sound southern by 2066, study finds
    Northern accents are dying out and could DISAPPEAR BY 2066
    Northern accents could be wiped out in less than 50 years, scientist says
    Opinion piece based on the story here
    Thread from Tamsin Blaxter (Cambridge linguist behind the language side of the project) here: https://twitter.com/tweetolectology/status/1421126516012986370
    ‘The Sound of 2066’ project (paper on ResearchGate): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308793528_Watt_D_Gunn_B_2016_%27The_sound_of_2066_A_report_commissioned_by_HSBC%27_26th_September_2016
    Some of the stories around it:
    It's the end of the frog and toad for regional slang, says report
    'Th' sound vanishing from English language with Cockney and other dialects set to 'die out by 2066'
    How will Brits speak in 50 years? The Sound of 2066
    Regional accents to end within 50 years according to new report
    Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
    Contributors
    Matthew Butler
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
    Lisa Casey
    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
    Dan Clayton
    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
    Jacky Glancey
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
    Music: Freenotes
    Show notes for Episode 20 of @LexisPodcast are here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k4x7bnh8jgsz1EuDxrgLPy-6By8IGvLX_HMEgFt5IcY/edit?usp=sharing
    It's a Language in the News special with @sj2915 to help kick off your new academic year.
    35 min
  • Episode 19 - Elena Semino
    Show notes for Episode 19
    Here are the show notes for Episode 19 in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk to Professor Elena Semino of Lancaster University about:
    The power of metaphor
    The universality of metaphor
    Metaphors for Covid, health campaigns and vaccinations
    Elena Semino’s Lancaster University webpage: Professor Elena Semino
    Elena on Twitter: Elena Semino (@elenasemino)
    Reframe Covid pages: #ReframeCovid
    Questioning Vaccine Discourse project: Quo VaDis: Questioning Vaccine Discourse Project (@vaccine_project)
    We’ll be back with a Language in the News special for episode 20 later this summer.
    Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
    Contributors
    Matthew Butler
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
    Lisa Casey
    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
    Dan Clayton
    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
    Jacky Glancey
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
    Music: Freenotes
    42 min
  • Episode 18 - Emma Byrne

    *Explicit warning* 

    Show notes for Episode 18 Here are the show notes for Episode 18 - our first birthday episode! - where Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about: ‘So’ and why it annoys language pedants and prescriptivists. Language discourses around two texts discussing ‘so’. And we talk to Dr Emma Byrne, author of ‘Swearing Is Good For You: the amazing science of bad language’ about...swearing. Obvs. Emma Byrne’s Swearing is Good for You page: Swearing is Good for You – Emma Byrne, Science Writer and Broadcaster Emma Byrne in The Guardian: Swear by it: why bad language is good for you | Emma Byrne Emma Byrne in Time Magazine: The Benefits of Swearing Emma Byrne in Elle: There's a Swearing Double Standard—and Women Can Change It - Emma Byrne on Gendered Perception of Swearing Broca’s area in the brain: The Broca Area and Language Production Wernicke’s area in the brain: WikiPedia: Wernicke's area Sophie Scott on Why we Laugh Sophie Scott: Why we laugh | TED Talk Sophie Scott on Why do Humans Laugh Why do humans laugh? So Alec Marsh in The Spectator on ‘so’ The remorseless rise of 'so' Lane Greene has responded on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lanegreene/status/1392805484768468993 He links to this https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/so-and-so-that-coordinating-or-subordinating-conjunctions?page=1 And there’s already been several peeve fests about ‘so’ over the years: So Here's Why Everyone Is Starting Sentences With The Word 'So' How A Popular Two-Letter Word Is Undermining Your Credibility So Shoot Me – Frank McNally on the sentence-opener of the century (so far) Today presenter John Humphrys declare war on the use of the word 'so' So, here's a carefully packaged sentence that shows me in my best light | Oliver James And this is a good piece on it: https://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/432732859/so-whats-the-big-deal-with-starting-a-sentence-with-so?t=1620925294688 In defence of the word 'so' - a much better take on ‘so’ from Elizabeth East. Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes

    51 min

About Lexis

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A podcast about language and linguistics for A Level English Language students, teachers and anyone else who's interested in language.