TGIF: That Gerund Is Funky … In the news this fortnight: a tweety faux pas from a shadow chancellor; an English invasion (linguistically) of India; a renowned school’s embarrassing spelling error; the Irish roots of American slang; Kelsey Grammer talks grammar on Twitter; learning languages in your sleep; and just what language did Jesus speak?

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British shadow chancellor Ed Balls ballsed up recently when he tweeted a picture of himself in Edinburgh with Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont and deputy leader Anas Sarwar. Sharing the image with his 125,000 Twitter followers, he captioned it: “Good pic from @AnusSarwar.” Ooops!

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“Gambling slang, underworld lingo, street gang terms, street-wise cant, merchant code and political jargon in New York City is teeming with Irish Gaelic that melted into American English.” So claims Daniel Cassidy, among many others, who show how American slang has its roots in the Irish American urban experience. Irish Central has the story.

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English is exploding in India — and we’re not just talking about Hinglish. The BBC‘s Craig Jeffrey reports on the fact that English words are cropping up increasingly in Hindi conversation. While some of these terms fell out of use in the UK decades ago, others are familiar, but used in bold new ways.

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Students recently graduating from Northwestern Medill School of Journalism were handed a diploma with a spelling error. The Chicago Tribune reported that about 30 of the 250 diplomas had the word ‘integrated’ spelled ‘itegrated.’

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The actor Kelsey Grammer has joined Twitter this week for one purpose: To harass people about the proper use of grammar. As Today warned, “Yes, Twitter users, Grammer is listening — or rather, reading — and he isn’t happy about what he’s learned. It seems your 140-characters-or-less messages are a bit too messy for him.”

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A team of Swiss psychologists argue that you can learn a language in your sleep. According to a study reported in The Independent, “listening to newly-learned foreign vocabulary while sleeping can help solidify the memory of the words.”

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Jesus’s language is more complicated that experts claim, writes Seth Sanders on Salon.com. “‘Israel’s Prime Minister was arguing with the Pope over what language Jesus spoke’ sounds like the setup to a weird joke. Which, actually, it is. Lasting just a few seconds, the dustup reflects centuries of attempts to claim Jesus through speech and to transform his native language and original words into sacred linguistic relics.”

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