That Gerund Is Funky … Language in the news …

As The Guardian pointed out, when British journalists add synonyms to add clarity to reports from across the Atlantic, they should make sure they’re choosing the correct words …

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As reported by Yahoo! Canada’s OMG blog, singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens joined the queue of Miley Cyrus critics, taking issue not with her twerking but with the grammar in one of her songs, “#GETITRIGHT”. As Stevens pointed out: “One particular line causes concern: ‘I been laying in this bed all night long,’ Miley, technically speaking, you’ve been LYING, not LAYING, an irregular verb form that should only be used when there’s an object, i.e. ‘I been laying my tired booty on this bed all night long.'”

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An exhibition named after a famous shoe named in turn after a punctuation mark has recently opened in Paris: “Virgule etc. … In the Footsteps of Roger Vivier” has the “Comma” shoe (otherwise known as the “Virgule”) as its top billing. Style.com reports.

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The English language, according to linguist Dennis Preston, “makes up a great big gob of who you are.” People tend to use voices and accents to make determinations — often inaccurate —  about age, gender, social status and race. The Holland Sentinel reported on his speech about the other “-ism” that we don’t often think about: language …

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