Number of Posts: 6
Posts 1 - 6
What Happened to Who?
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 8.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | abbreviations, grammar, language threat, politics, Twitter
Summary | More and more politicians have begun replacing the relative pronoun "who" with "that" in sentences like ''people that come with a legal visa and overstay''. Although some dictionaries say this is an acceptable for, the New York Times' style sheet does not condone using "that" instead of "who". It denies the mentioned persons their humanity. This trend is unsurprising considering that our communication is increasingly happening on platforms like Twitter that only allow 140 characters so that we invent loads of abbreviations like "LOL" and "TTYL".
Image Description | Artwork copying Edvard Munch's "The Scream" and a few high-profile Tweets with spelling mistakes.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter
Time to Put on Your Big-Boy Pants
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 19.1.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | hashtags, Instagram, social media, threat
Summary | The skinny jeans trend is fading and the new trend are low-waisted loose-fitting curduroy pants with a drop-crotch. Social media influencers comment that Instagram is changing the game when it comes to promoting trends. Users can access an endless stream of visual material by just searching for a hashtag of a new trend. This has some downsides to it since it accelerates the changing of trends and pressures people to renew their wardrobe each season.
Image Description | Getty image of models wearing the new trouser trend.
Image Tags | male(s)
How I Became Addicted to Online Word Games
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 18.3.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | addiction, game, language threat, spelling, word/writing
Summary | There are plenty of stories about the horrors of online game addiction. But being addicted to online word games mimicking Boggle or Scrabble does not only have the same addiction-related issues but also messes with your vocabulary. These games have no penalty for guessing a word that might not even be one, which is why one just begins to memorize all words that the app accepts without really knowing what they mean. This obsessive toying with words may have a negative impact on our linguistics abilities as well as spelling, and so on.
Image Description | Illustration of a man with Scrabble tiles on his tongue reminiscent of party pills.
Image Tags | game, male(s)
‘Unicorn Food’ Is Colorful, Sparkly and Everywhere
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 20.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, hashtags, Instagram, marketing, politeness, social media
Summary | Starbucks is cashing in on the 'unicorn food' trend - a trend to make all food colorful. The trend was likely sparked from a Florida-based Instagrammer who has now acquired a huge following. She noticed that her hobby had become a trend when people would copy her creations and Instagram them with the fitting hashtag. Now Starbucks has caught on the trend and they are offering a unicorm frappucino for five days only.
Image Description | Unicorn/rainbow foods and the Starbucks Unicorn Frappucino.
How to Listen to Donald Trump Every Day for Years
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 21.1.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | grammar, language threat, politics, texting, Twitter
Summary | President Trump is widely criticized for his poor speaking abilities. His speaking style is more akin to regular talking whereas presidential speaking traditionally resembles the written language. This explains why Trump's medium of choice is Twitter or 'speeches' (too linguistically informal to be called an actual speech). Twitter, with its limitation on message length resembles texting, which as linguists have confirmed mimicks spoken language rather than formal writing.
Image Description | Donald Trump on a stage being photographed.
Image Tags | camera, male(s)
Snap Makes a Bet on the Cultural Supremacy of the Camera
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 8.3.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | GIFs, language threat, Snapchat
Summary | Snapchat is showing us the future: communication is switching to more visual modes of communication such as photographs, videos, GIFs, funny filters. Linguist Gretchen McCulloch has argued that Snapchat filters constitute a new mode of phatic communication. We have seen the primacy of text gradually broken up in the past decade. This does not mean, however, that the written language will disappear altogether. Text is still very important for conveying accurate information concisely.
Image Description | GIF with anthropomorphic cameras and emojis dancing around.
Image Tags | camera, emojis, gifs
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