Saturday, December 28, 2002
“Most African leaders loudly denounce European values and praise African ones, but in their every deed they show that they worship everything European and despise everything African. They drive Mercedes, wear Savile Row suits and Gucci shoes, quote Shakespeare, send their children to Eton—and shout against ëEurocentric’ ideas. They are never more at ease than when they are attending conferences in Europe, surrounded by white diplomats, or less at ease than when in the African bush, surrounded by black peasants. Before colonialism, the literacy rate in sub-Saharan Africa was zero, but African leaders now blame low levels of literacy on colonialism. They are saying simultaneously, ëWhy did you colonise us?’ and ëWhy didn’t you colonise us more?‘“ (Source Link)
This is the personal weblog of Grant Barrett, editor of the Double-Tongued Dictionary, a collection of words from the fringes of English. More about this site...
Recent Entries
- Where would we be without “ass”?
- Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours
- What a bitchin’ word!
- Don’t forget about the dialect: dauncy/donsie, faunch, and jockey box
- Wilf? Yuffer? Get real!
- Lexicographer Laurence Urdang Dies at 81
- A thesaurus can be harmful
- Can bad language punditry be stopped? Can false attributions for classic quotes be fixed?
- There’s one in every country
- Scottish Language Dictionaries fundraiser
- SouthWest Writers
- Disfluencies: What do they mean by “I mean”?
- A hearty endorsement of shout quotes: scare quotes used for emphasis
- How to buy a dictionary
- Jinx and padiddle: games we play
Recent Catchwords
- financial incest n. (10/12)
- cutter t-shirt n. (10/10)
- Taliban union n. (10/10)
- suicide headache n. (10/10)
- packing for Perth n. (10/9)
- zombie economy n. (10/9)
- wasteman n. (10/9)
- stinkin’ thinkin’ n. (10/9)
- Delaware effect n. (10/9)
- skronk n. (10/8)
- carting n. (10/8)
- balloon addendum n. (10/8)
- nuclear winter n. (10/7)
- recessionista n. (10/7)
- paint the tape v. phr. (10/7)
- Minnewisowa n. (10/7)
- fluffy n. (10/7)
- charticle n. (10/6)
- window-dress v. (10/5)
- doughnut effect n. (10/5)
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