Stephen Fryguist

I forgot to mention where the title of my blog comes from. Stephen Fry, known in my country for his rather silly words on Polish antisemitism said in 2009 as well as the fact that he's married to a man, happens to be one of my favourite actors and model users of English. Despite my dislike of unnecessary and dogmatic prescriptivism, the fact that I'm not a native speaker of the language allows me to admire and at times emulate his accent, vocabulary and style. I never fail to recommend listening to him to my students.
'Don't Mind Your Language', presented on his blog as a podcast and a written text, is a wonderful piece of Fryesque rhetoric concerning language pundits ('Sod them to Hades!') and 'hard' linguistics, namely Stephen Pinker, Guy Deutscher and Ferdinand de Saussure. Last year at a conference in Toruń I gave a speech comparing Fry's views presented in the essay to David Crystal's books for the general reader and I'll notify you as soon as it's published.
If you haven't heard/read the essay yet, please do. If you teach advanced English or Introduction to Linguistics, don't hesitate to download the podcast and present it to your students.

http://www.stephenfry.com/2008/11/04/dont-mind-your-language%E2%80%A6/