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• January 18th, 2009

  What remarkable and surprising factoid do you know that is guaranteed liven up dinner party conversations?

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• January 18th, 2009

  Is the litter problem getting worse in Britain?

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• January 6th, 2009

  Are there any 7-seater family cars in the UK that are good looking and cool?

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Answers

• May 29th, 2009

  Why is the Brititish Citizenship test so hard not even a national could pass it!

  My wife’s just done this. I agree, not many UK citizens would pass if they were to sit the exam cold. However, there’s a large study book and once you’ve swotted then you should be able to pass it. Clearly it’s not trying to gauge whether you should be a citizen based on if you know when mothers day is, or whatever, it’s testing if you can read and learn in English. Btw, the test I saw had a lot of stuff on cultural history and the processes of government, and we both learned quite a bit from it. I’m sure there may be better ways to assess suitability for UK citizenship but it does seem a reasonable hurdle to have to get over.
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• February 10th, 2009

  How many cloth diapers should I get for a newborn?

  Sorry to add more discouraging words but we started on cloth nappies too, full of good intentions, but gave up quite quickly. We still have 80% of them unused in a drawer.
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• January 31st, 2009

  Has the English language degenerated, and what can we do about it?

  @morphail I think this is a good illustration of the “is language degenerating” question in microcosm. I wasn’t aware of the complex etymology but it shows how a need for expressiveness and precision can cause word senses to diverge, as well as how other forces can cause them to merge. Or in this case, oscillate wildly as the forces compete.
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• January 26th, 2009

  What is your favorite documentary film?

  I second ‘Man on Wire’. Also, I really liked ‘Grizzly Man’
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• January 18th, 2009

  Has the English language degenerated, and what can we do about it?

  Language will always evolve over time and for many different reasons, as people have pointed out. But the factors that drive this in a negative direction are countered to some extent by a requirement to maximise expressiveness and precision. Whilst, for example, ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’ are often used interchangeably there are enough people who understand the meanings and need to use these words with the correct word senses, that the distinction won’t be lost.
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