Comments on: 8 Sites for Watching English Evolve

By: macuser

macuser — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 21:22:08 +0000

While visiting this page, I stumbled upon an unknown acronym: NSFW, in the article dealing with the Urban Dictionary, of which I am a big fan. Unfortunately, the Urban Dictionary itself doesn’t provide a definition, nor do the others that I have tried so far. My best guess is “Not Suitable For Women” but I find that rather unsatisfactory. Please let me know what NSFW stands for.

By: roosevelt

roosevelt — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:21:29 +0000

haha, interesting websites indeed :).

Cankle made my day :p

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:13:55 +0000

I enjoyed your post. These sites would be helpful for the students, the readers and the one’s who loves the english language.

By: Kevin Yank

Kevin Yank — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 03:40:48 +0000

I quite enjoy the grammarphobia blog. Author Patricia T. O‘Conner answers readers’ questions about the squirrelly bits of the English language.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 03:02:36 +0000

Actually, the “ask/aks” variation has been happening in English for at least a thousand years. Grab any old English dictionary and you’ll find the two verbs acsian and ascian as definitions for “to ask.” It turns out this was a a regional dialect difference between the north and the south of England. Today, we tend to think of this as a socioeconomic dialect difference–with non-standard speakers employing “axe.” Futurama isn’t far off the mark, but with variation that’s been stable for at least a thousand years, there’s no reason to predict that in the year 3000 “axe” will replace “ask.” But it’s certainly not impossible, given the way variation leads to change.