Posts Tagged: alison flood

Shakespeare Didn’t Make up as Many Words as We Think

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For the Guardian, Alison Flood writes on the bias of the Oxford English Dictionary towards “famous literary examples” instead of the actual origin, resulting in the incorrect attribution of several still-used words and phrases to Shakespeare. Flood writes that there are multitudes of evidence showing earlier usages of phrases such as “wild goose chase” and “it’s Greek […]

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The Endangered List

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The Dictionary of American Regional English, or DARE, has launched a campaign to save fifty words and phrases it deems are dying from lack of use, reports Alison Flood for the Guardian: Although language change is inevitable, it’s too bad to see some of our most colourful expressions going out of use,” said Joan Hall, former […]

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Stable Decline

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According to an article by Alison Flood in the Guardian, library use in England has fallen almost 31 percent over the past decade, with one notable exception: Adults in the least deprived areas of England saw their library usage decline the most over the decade, from 46.3% to 31.4%, while according to the report, library usage […]

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Fifty Shades of Sexism

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A new academic study published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior has found that young women who read and enjoy Fifty Shades of Gray are more likely to hold sexist attitudes: The researchers found that those who had completed at least the first book in the trilogy had “stronger ambivalent, hostile, and benevolent sexist […]

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Beyond the Surface

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At the Guardian, Alison Flood wonders whether or not genre writing, particularly romance writing, is primarily “rubbish.” In her investigation, she points out how assumptions are often made about the “surface” elements of genre works and cites literary novels that have used the conventions of genre while maintaining their literariness.

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Less Is Pottermore

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Since the Harry Potter series ended, the Potter universe has continued to expand with tie-in books and lore published on the website Pottermore. However, Rowling’s magic-based historical revisionism was challenged this week by Native American activists responding to her latest post. Titled “The History of Magic in North America,” the post provides an explanation for […]

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Letter From Woolf Costs A Pretty Penny

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For the Guardian, Alison Flood reports that a letter from Virginia Woolf to her friend Philip Morrel will go to auction with a guide price of £1,000-£1,500. The letter tells of Woolf’s experience during the Battle of Britain and urges her friend “to go on living” after he’d become ill. Chris Albury at Dominic Winter Auctions says of the […]

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