Last modified on Tue 27 Apr 2021 11.17 EDT
Should we be worried for the English language when companies drop their vowels to appear more modern? No, say leading linguists, but a company rebranding is wrong because it is ill-judged, confusing and is definitely not the zeitgeist. It stnks.
Standard Life Aberdeen announced on Monday a name change to Abrdn, joining brands such as Flickr, Scribd, Grindr and Tumblr in dropping vowels from their names. The move was met with bafflement and scorn from linguists, who wondered if the name was now pronounced Aburden, Abradon or Aberdeen.
“To me it just smacks of old people trying to use youth language, or wanting to speak like teenagers, which is always a mistake,” said Rob Drummond, a reader in linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University and an expert in the language of young people. “It looks like older people desperately trying to sound cool.”
Demonstrators form âsymbolic ring of protectionâ in attempt to save Chorlton green space from development Some of us have walked on this land for over fifty years
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More than two hundred people joined forces on Saturday to create a âsymbolic ring of protectionâ to demonstrate the value in outdoor spaces.
It has been a dizzying week of news; some of it hopeful – including promises by the world’s top polluters to slash carbon emissions.
There have also been some tragic developments in India. This week marked a significant worsening of the spread of COVID-19 there.
But some of this week’s stories have been downright farcical. For instance, a proposed multibillion-dollar breakaway European football league has scored an embarrassing own goal.
And then, there was the Dogecoin roller coaster and a son being ordered to pay his mum $100m.
So, if you have been too busy to absorb the details of all that has been going on, here are the numbers you need to know.
Not the brains behind the proposed European Super League, that is for sure.
Just days after the fanfare and fury of Sunday’s announcement that the continent’s self-appointed top teams would break away from domestic competition to form their own exclusive league, with no promotion and no relegation – yet eye-wateringly lucrative potential TV rights – the plans lay in tatters.
So what went wrong?
Football fans across Europe were put in the unusual position of agreeing with former Manchester United captain Gary Neville, when his blistering excoriation of the plans on Sky Sports went viral on Sunday evening.
Gary Neville is the people s hero right now. Unreal piece of television about the European Super League. pic.twitter.com/ypdQbdQfs7
What was behind the collapse of the European Super League? aljazeera.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from aljazeera.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.