Morphology

Life of Brian - Latin Lesson - Romans Go Home!

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1979's "Life of Brian" comedically depicts the titular main character, played by Graham Chapman, defacing, in Latin, a Roman monument. A Roman centurion, played by John Cleese, stops him and punishes him for his "bad" grammar. The scene is largely a parody of the relationship between English schoolchildren and their teachers. Linguistically, it's interesting as a demonstration of prescriptive norms as well as the representation of different dialects. Cleese's dialect is meant to sound more elevated while Graham Chapman's, who is from Melton Mowbray, north of London, is meant to sound less elevated, which is supposed to add to the comedy. Funnily enough, I think some of Brian's usages correlate with changes that would end up occurring in Latin before it changed into the various Romance languages.

New Kanji for the "New Normal"

New kanji was created to indicate a socially-distanced gathering. The original symbol resembles two people sitting near each other, and the new creation sets them further apart. [Published on 12-25-2020]

Posted by Micah Castro on April 23, 2021

Tags:
Japanese;
Change;
Morphology

Sonic girls making new words

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These girls are taking words that already exist and combining them to make a new word with a new meaning.

Posted by Taylor on July 1, 2018

Tags:
Crossing;
Acquisition;
Merger;
Variation;
Discourse;
Morphology

Ismo: Ass Is The Most Complicated Word In The English Language

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a very productive morpheme!

Posted by justice del castillo on April 19, 2018

Tags:
Morphology;
Slang

"Culs de sac"

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Debating how to make words plural in English when words are taken from other languages (relevant material ends at about 0:30)

Posted by Terra Sky on February 11, 2015

Tags:
Morphology;
English