Revision / Round up

Like a harassed DJ responding to requests, I've been seeing people and speaking to them about areas they want to brush up on before the exam. I thought I'd post some links here that might be useful to everyone, as I've noticed that a few requests are overlapping.
First up - Jean Aitchison's Reith Lectures - you can download them all here. The first one, 'A Web of Worries' will give you much more detail on her ideas about damp spoons, crumbling castles and the like, but the other ones are really useful, too. (I search for a lot of podcasts in iTunes, and download them directly there).
Whilst we're on podcasts, if you've got an hour or two to spare, head over to the British Library website and check out some of the podcasts from their Evolving English exhibition. David Crystal's is really good, but also is Steven Pinker's, where he dicusses the evolutionary process of words.
Still on podcasts, you can also check out two interviews with Henry Hitchings from the Blackwell site (or better yet, search for Henry Hitchings in the iTunes store - there are two really good podcasts there; one 19 mins long, the other 11). Again, really useful, but no substitute at all for reading the book, which I still recommend you do before the big day.
And finally, you can still find more stuff then I could ever dig up by wandering over to the Eng Lang SFX site - I've been banging on about this for 2 years now, so I'm certainly not going to stop now.
As ever, any questions, comments, Bell & Ross watches, send them over to the usual address

Concordance software

Not all of you will need to look at this, but for those of you who are crunching a lot of words for your investigation, then you can use this extremely useful tool that you can download here. Once you've downloaded it to your computer (don't bother trying it with school computers - if you need to use it in school you can use my laptop), if you need some pointers on how to get started with it, then you can look at the first couple of tutorials that are available on Youtube - here, here and here.

As ever, keep looking at the excellent SFX blog - there's been a load of really useful stuff on there recently. Any problems - give me a shout.

Language and sport

Given we're a sports college (or are we still?), I'm outraged at myself that we haven't covered the link between language and sport in too much detail. If you are thinking of completing any sport related work for your coursework (either for AS or A2) then I strongly recommend visiting the ever excellent Macmilan Dictionary blog, then scrolling down and clicking the 'Sporting English' tab on the right hand side. Alternatively, you can save yourself a calorie or two, and simply click here.

Shamelessly re-blogged from the SFX site - this is quality

The blog formerly known as ...English Language @ SFX: Unfriended for grammar fails: There's a good article here on ZDNet by Charlie Osborne about grammar, spelling and punctuation on social networking sites. She takes a loo...

Euphemism

You can find a fantastic article all about euphemism here, from The Economist site. Y13 kids, if you can see how the choice of words involved in constructing euphemism reveal something about the society that uses them (in terms of ideologies or beliefs), then trust me, you're onto a winner. Enjoy!

New Year Resolutions

Right then, I know I've been neglecting this of late (even though my hit counter keeps going up; I can see you all there thinking 'Does he ever do anything?'), but from here on in, I'm making a solemn promise to post at least once a week, either something I've written, or a re-post from some of the many (regularly updated) jobs that you can see to the right of this post.

If I don't, then (and this is cast in the stone of the internet, for you to screengrab at will) I'll bring biscuits to the following lesson. Fact. Double stamped. If you like, you can vote on the type of biscuits, but be aware; if you're the kind of freak that likes Custard Creams, then a long, lonely life awaits.

General updates, nothing special...

Right then - to start at the start...
First up is a link that Lauren found, that neatly sums up a lot of the revision for ENGB3. Obviously, because it is helpful, it is quite securely behind the firewall, so you'll have to access it from home. You can find that beast here.
Also helpfully provided is an answer to your most recent homework; don't get me wrong, we could definitely wring a few more marks out of it (in all AOs), but it's a good place to start.