…one would imagine, to the setences one can generate when trying to be truly imaginative with the English language; it’s for this reason that people like Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie impress me; they have literary flair. What I find amusing, and what my Mum, who’s an Academic Socio-Linguist (is there any other kind?) finds interesting, are the kinds of quasi-sentences that just pop out when you least expect them.

For example, the other day (ok, ok, it was yesterday at the pub and this is all part of the great napkin-blogging enterprise), a friend (ok, it was Tom) enunciated the following words: “Google Weebl badgers find.” Although this made limited sense to me, “Google” as a verb does; so, following the recommendation of Mr Phillips, I ended up visiting a site where I did, indeed, find badgers. In fact, it’s an interesting song about badgers and mushrooms that to me was vaguely reminiscent of 2 Unlimited’s ‘No Limit’.

The makers of the English language may decry our efforts to be inventive with the language, but I largely applaud it. Not anything that leads to the badger site, though. That gave me a headache. Little buggers.