Last week I posted this 1946 essay by George Orwell lamenting the degradation of the English language at the hands of political speech. Today I read “Reviving Anorexic Web Writing,” an article which applies similar thoughts to the web’s contribution to the degradation of the English language. The author is Amber Simmons, a [...]

Popularity: 19% [?]

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I never really aspired to librarianship as a child (who does?) probably because of perceptions such as these. Just for kicks I did a Google Books search on the phrase “librarians are like” and here are a few of the results. I actually found this somewhat discouraging — most of these statements were [...]

Popularity: 16% [?]

Posted in Libraries, Quotes No Comments »

A BBC News website poll which asks readers to identify ten classic English novels based on their first lines is more difficult than you might think. Their website explains:

Leading literary firms failed to recognise the work of Jane Austen when it was sent in by a prankster. The opening chapters of three novels were [...]

Popularity: 21% [?]

Posted in Literature, Quotes, Web 2 Comments »