Informal Usage Research Articles

Schizophrenia as split personality/Jekyll and Hyde: The origins of the informal usage in the English language

The entry into the English language of the informal usage of schizophrenia as split personality/Jekyll and Hyde is traced and commented upon. The metaphor of split personality is followed from Eugene Bleuler via his translators and the wider psychiatric community into the present day. It, and to a lesser extent the Jekyll-Hyde personality, is found to be as much a product of the psychological professions as a product of lay misinterpretation. The informal definition of schizophrenia as split personality has outlived the scientific theory with which it was initially associated.

The Modal Auxiliarieshave toandmustin theCorpus of Early Ontario English: Gradient Change and Colonial Lag

AbstractThe notion ‘drift’ plays an important role in the development of the modalshave toandmustin early Canadian English in relation to British and American English during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.Have tois first found in texts that reflect informal usage, and for the period in question (1750–1849),have tois only attested with deontic readings; the data suggest that its rise was not exclusively conditioned by the defective paradigm ofmust. Mustmaintains its epistemic function in relation to its Late Modern English competitors. In early Canadian English, changes progress gradually, with individual variables following different directions. Canadian English epistemicmustlags behind, while deontichave tohas spread more quickly in North America, with Canadian English more progressive than British English varieties, but less so than American English. Within a more general drift towardshave to, Canadian English shows independent development in successive periods.

Diglossia: the state of the art

Although the French term diglossie was introduced by the Arabist William Marc°ais in 1930 (Marc°ais 1930), it is the late Charles A. Ferguson who is most often credited as the first to introduce the notion of a ``high'' (H) and a ``low'' (L) variety or register of a language in a classic (1964 [1959]) article in the journal Word with the now famous one-word title, ``Diglossia.'' The gist of his widely influential essay was to demonstrate that the idea of H and L registers best explained the pervasive linguistic distinctions observable in a few speech communities concerning the strict complementary distribution of formal vs. informal usage. For Ferguson, who calqued the term from the French, there were only four ``defining'' languages that he considered representative: Arabic, Swiss German, Haitian Creole, and Modern Greek. This essay reviews some of the voluminous diglossia literature and focuses on the linguistic situation in the Arab world, presenting ideas about future research prospects (such as the diglossic continuum).

The linguistic minorities of France

Although France is one of the most centralized countries in Europe, its apparent unity must not conceal that it is made up of many linguistic groups, and that French has only in recent years succeeded in becoming the common language of all the French. The situation of each one of the seven non-official languages of France is at first examined. The problem is then situated in its historical context, with the emphasis falling on why and how the French state tried to destroy them. Although the monarchy did not go much further than to impose French as the language of the administration, the revolutionary period was the beginning of a deliberate attempt to substitute French for the regional languages even in informal and oral usage. This was really made possible when education became compulsory: the school system was then the means of spreading French throughout the country. Nowadays the unity of France is no longer at stake, but its very identity is being threatened by the demographic weight, on French soil, of the immigrants from the Third-World.

THE OPEN UNIVERSITY'S ROLE IN CONTINUING EDUCATION

ABSTRACT This paper from the 1979 Conference, ‘Television In Society’, describes the Open University's extension of its original role into continuing education, not only in the areas of professional and in‐service training, but in community education. Short courses of novel design aim to satisfy particular personal or domestic needs. The implications of the work in community education, in particular, for future development of OU work in continuing education include: increased collaboration with outside bodies, and informal usage of courses by other agencies for their own purposes, so that it is questioned whether multi‐media courses or packages of learning materials are being created.

Axiomatic basis for spaces with noninteger dimension

Five structural axioms are proposed which generate a space 𝒮D with ’’dimension’’ D that is not restricted to the positive integers. Four of the axioms are topological; the fifth specifies an integration measure. When D is a positive integer, 𝒮D behaves like a conventional Euclidean vector space, but nonvector character otherwise occurs. These 𝒮D conform to informal usage of continuously variable D in several recent physical contexts, but surprisingly the number of mutually perpendicular lines in 𝒮D can exceed D. Integration rules for some classes of functions on 𝒮D are derived, and a generalized Laplacian operator is introduced. Rudiments are outlined for extension of Schrödinger wave mechanics and classical statistical mechanics to noninteger D. Finally, experimental measurement of D for the real world is discussed.

The Use of the Abbreviation Rev. in Modern English

ITHOUT going into detail, perhaps a few observations concerning the use of the abbreviation Rev. in present-day English may be briefly noted. To treat the matter thoroughly would require exhaustive research. Early examples of this abbreviation (or of the word in unabbreviated form) may be found in the New English Dictionary. As an adjective it came into the language from French during the fifteenth century, the first recorded instance dating from 1449. In early use, says the N.E.D., whether abbreviated or not, it was used without the article before it. From the fifteenth century even into the eighteenth we find such phrases as Ryght reverende fader (1484), reverend Bishop Hooper (1642), Reverend Calvin (1656), Rev'rend Dean (1713), Right Sirs (1781), reverend sir (1820), etc. Even before 1700, however, forms with the article preceding Rev. came into use, and by 1800 the use of the article was the established custom. From that time to the present Rev. has regularly been preceded by the article, although usage without the article has never disappeared. The question of particular interest is whether or not the usage with the article is the one prevailing today. Handbooks on usage are practically unanimous in saying that the should always precede Rev. But these books may be out of date in this, as in many other points. Woolley's Handbook,' for example, not only says that Rev. should be preceded by the at all times, but also says that Rev. should be spelled out-a custom rarely followed except in most formal usage. In dealing with instances of contemporary practice, formal and informal usage must of course be distinguished. In strictly formal usage Rev. is spelled out and preceded by the article almost invariably. Informal usage is that of general practice, and is therefore of much greater interest. All that follows will deal with informal usage. Some handbooks, for example, Taintor and Munro's, say there is variation in usage, yet almost without exception give examples using only forms preceded by the article. In current newspapers and