The English Society at the University of Sheffield had arranged for him to come and give a talk to which I got a ticket right away when I heard about it - I couldn't believe the chance!
Before the talk, there was a question and answer session with him that not too many people knew about, at least there were only around ten people there. But it was better like that! I asked him what his favourite word in the English language was, and he said that he really liked Shakespeare's way of coining new words with the prefix un- and that he also appreciated the new words that people have come up with for different social media phenomena, like "blogorrhea". He also demonstrated how English was pronounced in Shakespeare's times. Actually, there's a video where he does a similar thing, have a look!
All in all, he seemed very funny!
His talk was also hilarious. The topic was "Language and the Internet", which I'm sure was especially fascinating to even people who aren't that interested in linguistics. It was just amazing to listen to someone who knows so much about something that I really care about!
The talk was held in St. George's lecture theatre that used to be a church!
The best part was that I got to have my book signed by him and also got a photo with him! I was so happy!
He was so friendly (and spelled my name correctly!). I said I was from Finland, and he said "That explains the double vowel".
No comments:
Post a Comment