Language Log

Zippy explores the rustic dang and durn (roughly equivalent to damn and its substitute darn), wielding them in a variety of syntactic contexts:  

P Terry Hunt asked: I was struck by part of the passage quoted from the Coleridge poem, which I understand dates from 1815: "All my I! all my I! He's a heretic dog who but adds Betty Martin!" I'm sure many are familiar with the (now somewhat old-fashioned) British slang expression "All my eye [sic] […]

Back in January 2004 Mark Liberman engaged with Dr. Robert Beard, then doing business as "Dr. Language" on yourDictionary.com, on the politics of pronunciation. Dr. Beard now goes by a new nom de blog, "Dr. Goodword," on yourDictionary's successor, alphaDictionary.com. It turns out he's interested in presidential politics as well, as demonstrated by the most […]