Linksfest:: What I'm Reading Online

Just a quick set of links:

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Grammar and semantics, the thug and slut

Language Log discusses the way grammar and semantics/meaning get personified with distinct genders: Someone should investigate the ways in which the grammar/semantics distiction is personified. Grammar is often cast as a fussy schoolteacher (a schoolmarm, in particular: Miss Fidditch) or some other kind of authority figure, a legislator or judge or priest (almost surely male). But grammar can also be seen as empty form, which on its own produces mere chatter without substance - a female stereotype. Meaning, in contrast, is configured either as substantial and significant (so: agentive and male) or as "natural", even earthy (so: passive and female). ( Link , via Feministe ) I suppose there's something in the human condition that makes it easier for us to respond to abstract concepts (such as grammar) when they are described human characteristics, but it's interesting to see how stereotypes can get buried in these personifications. Of course, who pays any attention to
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Song Interpolations - Mony Mony

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"M ony Mony" - the Billy Idol version, not the Tommy James and the Shondells original - came up on my MP3 playlist today and it reminded me of how people chant the "hey motherf***er" lines in between the lines of the verse. There she comes round singin' Mony Mony ("hey motherf***er...") Here in Singapore, the 'added' lines always sounded like "hey motherf***er hey hey motherf***, but when I was in the US people would chant "hey motherf***er get laid get f***ed", but the general swearing theme remains intact. So I was thinking that this is a very strange thing to spread globally - does anyone know the origins of this "tradition"? Looking it up on Google, I found an entertaining thread about the whole "added lyrics" thing : I did know that people do sing "so good, so good, so good" in between the chorus of "Sweet Caroline", and that "Family Tradition," by Hank Williams Jr., gets pun
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