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I was excited to be asked some months ago to be part of a new language blog being planned by the Chronicle of Higher Education (the Chronicle being the weekly newspaper that covers the universe of colleges and universities). I naturally said yes; the blog, Lingua Franca, debuted about a month ago. So far, my fellow bloggers (Lucy Ferriss, Carol Saller, Allan Metcalf, and Geoffrey Pullum) and I have had a splendid time; I've weighed in on cliches, redundancy (this one was worthwhile if only because it let me use the title "What the Meaning of 'Is Is' Is"), and howlers in students' writing (such as "I wore a sequence-covered dress"). Any slight anxiety I may have had about coming up with enough topics have been more than allayed: I ...read more