STEPHEN FRY

6 comments on “Series 2 Episode 3, Language”

1. Sub-Level28 says:

   10 September, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   Refreshing to hear your thoughts in this matter.

   While I am not obsessive about language myself in that I don’t go around being a grammar police or some such thing.
   I do take pride in using it “properly” when writing and expanding my knowledge about them. And increasing my skill in expressing myself, you know increasing the vocabulary and such things.
   I want to learn one or two more in my lifetime.

   And english is my second language by the way.
2. korova_milk_bar says:

   29 September, 2009 at 11:06 pm

   This podcast has come to be such a help to me recently as a second year undergraduate trying to understand the basics for critical theory. Difficult thing to do but for anyone looking to even simply grasp the basic ideas of Saussuere then I highly recommend this podcast. It has been an invaluable and a great aid in allowing me to gain a very good initial understanding without boring the pants off me in class. If only all lecturers talked like Mr Fry, mmm, what a thought!
3. mrsllew says:

   16 November, 2009 at 9:30 pm

   Having only recently listened to this particular podcast, I am mindful that you didn’t want people to comment on misuses of language, but this one that happened to me today must be shared:

   I have recently fallen pregnant for a second time, and had a booking-in appointment with the midwife. I had to read through and sign several forms, one of which asked for my religion. Underneath this space it stated that I may wish to “be visited by a Chaplin” in the hospital. I don’t know that I want my newborn child’s first experience of faith to be a short man with a clipped moustache, bandy legs and a skill for physical comedy!

   Just tickled me so I thought you’d like to know…
4. Harry Lime says:

   24 December, 2009 at 1:29 am

   This is my first podcast, and was not a bit what I expected; a college lecture-ish sort of thing, particularly one on not being an English snob, or perhaps more clearly and less offensively, a snob of English usage. On one hand, I want to physically harm people who use “had went”. Otherwise, and I feel not contradictorily, I agree on a generally permissive attitude for the literate. I am secretly galled by Dr. Hyphen, the super-villain of correctness of my order. But till today I didn’t realize his diabolical crime was pedantry. I thought they put you in jail for that. I also despair about the limitations of my education… my teachers didn’t know bugger about Greek.
5. Harry Lime says:

   24 December, 2009 at 5:09 am

   The phrase ‘fell pregnant’ has never fallen on my ears before. Wictionary refers to article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3626615/How-words-fall-pregnant-with-the-possibility-of-being-twisted.html but this isn’t a really positive reflection on the phrase. Reads more like an indictment of our epoch. Didn’t want today to end but that I had ‘actioned’ this.
6. da_phish says:

   12 January, 2010 at 12:57 am

   I just need to comment that today or at least the rather binary today that ended 50 minutes and a bottle and a half of wine ago was the day I learned that my better half will be having my child. It’s early days on that front but I would like to assure Mr Fry that I will ensure it is heard by my currently genderless progeny whenever they are old enough to hear it.