…brevity is the soul of wit… – William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Twitter again. Now we can compose tweets of 280 characters on Twitter, double the previous limit. And I have to ask: why?
280 Characters in Search of a Tweet
politics
What’s the Word for a Male Nurse?
Why, just nurse, of course. But if someone asked you, you’d probably still think for a moment, wouldn’t you? Because it does feel very much like a female job in a lot of ways. And it’s still a role mostly performed by women. It’s evidence of the persistence of gender stereotypes like the idea that women are more natural caregivers.
So of course even though the word for a male nurse is still just nurse, we usually specify that someone is a male nurse. That’s not too surprising, considering how deep our associations between nursing and femininity go.
Avoidance, Evasion, and Avoision
You may have heard of the Paradise Papers, which have revealed some of the figure financial dealings of the super-rich. Reading about them is interesting because of how careful the better journalists are with their use of language. Because, a single misused word can make a big difference.
Into or In To?
Well, it depends, doesn’t it?
Even if you’ve never thought about it before, it’s perhaps not too surprising that the word into is a combination of the words in and to. If you think about any sentence in which you might use the word, it clearly combines the meaning of both:
He walked into the room.
To is there because there’s movement, and to usually comes after verbs of movement. In is there because he ends up in the room. Easy. But, does this mean we can always replace in to with into?
Bonfire
Passing through some of the suburbs of Dublin on Hallowe’en Night, I was heartened to see a few bonfires burning.
I’ve just Written this Post, and Twitter’s Response is Perfect!
Puigdemont: a Pronunciation Guide
Another couple of weeks, another European leader whose name we need to figure out how to pronounce.
English-Language Thoughts 