Archive for February, 2008
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Micallef on Compensation
Newstopia, a satirical news program on SBS, commenced its second season last night and one story covered was the formal apology to the members of the stolen generations.
Presenter Shaun Micallef grilled a caricature of a staffer for the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs about why there shouldn’t be any compensation delivered with the apology (my own [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Indigenous, Politics, Reconciliation, Stolen Generation by jangari
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Geolinguistics
Long term readers of this blog would probably know that I occasionally like to mess around with Google Earth and to try out new things to do with languages and so forth. It began with an exercise in mapping some known and established place names in the Sydney Metropolitan Area, mostly concentrated in and around [...]
5 Comments » - Posted in Anthropology, Culture, Endangered Languages, Google, Indigenous, Land, Languages, Linguistics, Technology by jangari
Monday, February 18th, 2008
In terms of what?
Seen in this morning’s Herald, in the letters section:
The dreaded use of “absolutely” seems to have abated. Can we now get rid of the lazy linguists’ use of “in terms of”?
Garrett Naumann, Cammeray
But what on earth is he talking about? Do linguists overuse the expression in terms of? Even if we do, is its use [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in English, Languages, Linguistics, Media, Prescriptivism by jangari
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Sorry Business
On my way to work late this morning, I took note of how many Aboriginal and Torres Straight flags there were flying prominently around Sydney Harbour. They flew above the bridge, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and notably, above Kirribilli House. I don’t know if they’ve been there any longer than just today – the [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in History, Indigenous, Land, Politics, Reconciliation, Stolen Generation by jangari
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
The Prime Minister Who Apologised
It’s been almost eleven years since the tabling of the Bringing them Home report, and tomorrow, the Australian Federal Parliament will formally apologise to the stolen generations.
This afternoon, Rudd made the full text of the apology available for the first time and, despite some earlier whining from some members of the coalition, specifically over the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in History, Indigenous, Land, Politics, Reconciliation, Stolen Generation by jangari
Thursday, February 7th, 2008
Damn I’m good
In a post this morning, I suggested facetiously that the Coalition might prefer to use the term ’separated’ as opposed to ’stolen’, in the wording of a formal apology to the victims of some of the more abhorrent assimilationist policies.
The opposition are most concerned over the term Stolen Generation apparently. Perhaps they’d prefer to use [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Euphemism, Linguistics, Politics, Reconciliation, Semantics, Stolen Generation by jangari
Thursday, February 7th, 2008
Eleven years in the making
In less than a week, the federal Australian Government will catch up to the eight states and territories, and only a decade behind them.
The Bringing Them Home report was tabled in Parliament on May 26, 1997. Within two days, Western Australia and South Australia, both Coalition-governed states at the time, had issued unreserved apologies¹. By [...]
