January 2004 Archives

Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights

I have just been reading the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights a document backed by UNESCO, many NGOs and numerous univeristies, etc. An interesting document, looking at the problems thrown up by the move towards a globalised world, with greater movements of people, it tries to establish objective principles towards the recognition and status of languages within a territory.

Albeit

I came across this in my newspaper yesterday: "It had an, albeit marginal, effect." The word order struck me as rather strange; I'd have put 'albeit marginal' after the noun. Placing it before doesn't seem to work in my opinion, but I'm not 100% sure, so I've put a poll up to see what others think.

Had Princess Diana worn a seatbelt

In my newspaper the other day, I came across the following sentence:

Had Princess Diana worn a seatbelt, she may have lived.

This usage is very common nowadays, but it strikes me as odd; I would have used might there.