It is a depressingly common experience. You are waiting for a train and an announcement tells you that your train is late. The announcement invariably ends ‘We apologise for any inconvenience.’ Why do announcers always include the minimising word ‘any’? Including ‘any’ signals that the announcer (or rather the organisation they represent) doubts whether…… Continue reading We apologise for any inconvenience
Tag: Pragmatics
Using translation to show how the perfect differs across languages
Many western European languages have a perfect tense, formed by combining an auxiliary verb (meaning ‘have’ or ‘be’) with a past participle. Different languages use this verb form in different ways. A recent paper used translations of a well-known French novel to explore those differences. The aim was to see which tense the translators used…… Continue reading Using translation to show how the perfect differs across languages
Yes-no questions in headlines
I recently came across a reference to Betteridge’s Law. Not having heard of this before, I looked it up on the web. As Wikipedia explains, Betteridge’s Law of Headlines says the following: ‘Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.’ Ian Betteridge, a technology journalist, explained that journalists…… Continue reading Yes-no questions in headlines