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Tuesday 15 July 2014

Weird Al's Word Crimes

Well, clevernesses, I am not sure what to make of this. Is he being as prescriptive as he sounds (and, indeed, offensive about it) or is it a rant in character, using all the aspects of language use people pick up on and exposing them? Some of the subtleties of the visuals link to the Muphry's law post I wrote earlier, so check that out first and, well, I couldn't help but enjoy some of this although I winced an awful lot too. If you haven't come across Weird Al before, as Lang students you will find some of his work very interesting/punny. Check out Eat It (Beat It, Michael Jackson) to see an early one. This one is a version of Blurred Lines (yes, there's a parallel here about contentious issues set to this music!).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

2 comments:

  1. Interesting tackling of the offensive slur he didn't know he'd used: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13552&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

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  2. http://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/the-problem-with-weird-als-word-crimes/

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