Catmachine

Sometimes it seems as if the world we now live in at the beginning of the twenty-first century is a particularly awful one. There are so many things going on that are simply wrong and make you see red. But don't worry - if you're feeling this at all it means that you're alive and furthermore do have a sense of morality. At least you're not giving up and at least you care. Of course having discovered that you do care, the problem can be where to start. To which of these causes - all of which are valid - do you offer your support? There are so many of them. OK, so you pick the one that means the most to you, the one whose underlying injustice brings your blood to boiling point the quickest. You do what you can for it whether this means donating your own money or your own time. You do what you can to raise awareness. But most important of all, you always remember that you are not doing this to feel better about yourself. You are doing this to fight injustice and if y...

Disclaimer: given that this blog entry is about the correct use of English there will no doubt be a large number of typos and incidences of misuse. One thing you hear a lot about these days is the so-called bastardisation of the English language . These complaints take many forms but seem to boil down to a couple of main griping areas: The old complaining about the way the young use language (thinly veiled youth envy) The British complaining about the way Americans use language (thinly veiled xenophobia). Language is a constantly evolving system. Two key ingredients of evolution are vast numbers and swiftly changing environments in which those numbers exist. The population explosion of the past fifty years combined with the way information and communications technology has enabled an exponential growth of the number of channels via which language can be used and transmitted mean that English is probably evolving far faster now than it ever has before. However the existence of me...