Tag Archives: English language
On referring to female officers as ‘madam sir’
ET Lifestyle published a Twitter thread this morning about police officers referring to female superior officers as “sir” or as “madam sir”. I do find the practice offensive, because it signals an inability to imagine anyone but a (cis)man in … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged English language, ESL, female police officers, gender bias, linguistic relativity, madam sir, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, sexism, Whorfianism
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The new JNU VC’s statement has bad grammar. So?
I strongly disagree with some criticism that has emerged on Twitter against the new JNU vice-chancellor Santishree Pandit. The object of criticism is a statement that Pandit has apparently drafted and in which she states, broadly, what she considers to … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture
Tagged English language, Jawaharlal Nehru University, JNU VC, Mary Beard, Mary Norris, Santishree Pandit, Varun Gandhi
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A Q&A about my job and science journalism
A couple weeks ago, some students from a university in South India got in touch to ask a few questions about my job and about science communication. The correspondence was entirely over email, and I’m pasting it in full below … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged class symbols, copy editing, English language, grammar, journalism on the internet, newspapers, Science, science editor, science journalism, scientific method, scientism, The Wire, The Wire Science
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English as the currency of science’s practice
K. VijayRaghavan, the secretary of India’s Department of Biotechnology, has written a good piece in Hindustan Times about how India must shed its “intellectual colonialism” to excel at science and tech – particularly by shedding its obsession with the English language. … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged English language, intellectual colonialism, K VijayRaghavan, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Nayodya Vidyalaya, scientific publishing
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