The public's concern with the fate of the standard language has been well documented in the history of the complaint tradition. The print media have for centuries featured letters to the editor on questions of language use. This study examines a corpus of 258 language-related letters to the editor published in the English-speaking print media. By…

Depending on how one does the math, there are between a quarter-million and a million words in the English language. Of all these words, the author holds in contempt only one. That word is "like"--not the tepid expression of mild appreciation but the parasitic form that now bleeds the mother tongue, marks the user as a dunce, and, were it truly…

The word "verteufeln" is now in common use in German television broadcasts. Its popularity in current colloquial German is seen as due to the fact that it combines picturesqueness and vagueness. It is used, for example, in lieu of words for "condemn,""scold," and "disparage." (Text is in German.) (WGA)

Analyzes the uses of "quien" as an interrogative and a relative pronoun with numerous examples from standard spoken Spanish. Emphasizes syntactic and contextual factors, as well as stylistic variations, and explains the contrast between "quien" and "que" as subjects of a relative clause. (MES)

The evolution of the Spanish language is due, in part, to popular culture and radio, television, films and advertising. Many words take on altered meaning when used in casual, intimate or slangy conversation; included is a list of such words with their informal connotations, as used by many Mexicans. (Text is in Spanish.) (CK)

Discusses the study of colloquial Spanish in literary texts. Presents an annotated list of Spanish colloquial expressions extracted from "Paralelo 40" by Jose Luis Castillo-Puche. (Text is in Spanish.) (TL)

Revised expanded version of a paper presented in Belgium and East Germany in 1970 and 1971. (WB)

Analyzes the uses of the negation "ne" in a variety of contexts ranging from literary to standard spoken usage. Focuses especially on the semantic implications of certain uses of the negation in order to illustrate the notion of "visee" (aim) or underlying global meaning. (MES)

Discusses the many uses of the honorific title of "Don" in Spanish literature and Spanish colloquial speech. It may be used to joke and express irony, as in the expression "don ladron" (sir thief), and forms part of many idiomatic expressions. (Text is in Spanish.) (TL)

The nature of linguistic variation is examined, particularly the ways in which phonology, morphology, syntax, and other aspects of language vary according to social and situational contexts. A distinction must be made between a difference in frequency of a linguistic variable that carries meaning, and a difference in frequency which carries no…

Many speakers of Modern Greek have an exaggerated notion of the superiority of their language vis-a-vis Turkish and the languages of Southeastern Europe. It would therefore come as a surprise to some Greeks that Modern Greek lexical elements in Romanian have undergone a substantial stylistic demotion during the past century or so. In this paper…

This paper examines the following points: (1) how Japanese personal pronouns are used according to the speakers' social constraints, and (2) differences between males and females of the same occupational group in their use of personal pronouns. The dialect analyzed is the speech of Japanese faculty members at the University of Hawaii. A speaker of…