DIALECTS OF ENGLISH

Once again a post from David Crystal's blog leads me to an interesting Internet resource. This time I will comment on International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA), an online archive of dialect and accent recordings for the performing arts created by Paul Meier, author of Accents and Dialects for Stage and Screen.

This website contains a well structured bank of recordings by speakers of English from around the world. Each of them reads out a short passage provided by the organisers and, after that, the participants add some free speech, usually talking about their experience as English learners and their countries, which is transcripted.

SAYING YEARS IN ENGLISH

I've just read an interesting entry in David Crystal's blog about the way that speakers of English will opt for to call the years from 2010, On tens, teens, or whatever.

I thought that the option of naming the years after 1999 in units, e.g. "two thousand and nine", was something fixed but I see that usage spread will definitely determine the standard form.

In the thread of comments following the post, Crystal adds that "rhythm is an important factor (...) The more that expressions conform to an iambic pattern, the more people like it".