Day: August 23, 2018

    The social media giant has carried out a dramatic crackdown on 'coordinated inauthentic behaviour' originating in Tehran and targeting countries including the UK and US. The 'Liberty Front Press' network of Facebook pages was publishing cartoons praising the Labour leader, mocking the Queen and lampooning Brexit among other material. Commons Culture Committee chair Damian Collins said he feared the haul of more than 650 pages was the 'tip of the iceberg'. They've found a few hundred here or there targeting the UK and US and there were 30,000 removed close to the French election, but my concern is that this would be the tip of the iceberg,' Mr Collins said. The activity, some of which dates back to 2011, included spreading political messages and attempting to hack ...

    For decades British people have complained about Americanisms creeping across the pond. But now it seems the trend is being reversed with linguists arguing that British English is influencing US speakers, rather than the other way around. Words such as dodgy, bespoke, wonky and twee have popped up in the vocabulary of American speakers influenced by a desire to sound more sophisticated. Language expert Ben Yagoda, who has been collecting examples on his blog, says he has even seen examples of mum rather than mom. The phenomenon is particularly strong on the east coast, where New Yorkers now talk about going to gastropubs, or on holiday, instead of vacation. Professor David Crystal, one of the worlds foremost experts in linguistics, said the phenomenon was influenc...