Early in 2022, while doing my daily doomscroll on Twitter, I noticed Kriol becoming a topic of conversation. Excuse me, what? When part of my day job is trying to get non-Kriol speakers to pay attention to the fact that Kriol exists, I never expected Kriol to organically go viral! But it happened. And it wasn't cute. Kriol goes viral The story starts with Covid. In late 2021, the Aboriginal Health Council of WA (AHCWA) created a few short Covid vaccination videos in some of WA's main Indigenous languages, nobly wanting to make sure remote Aboriginal residents were as safe from Covid as urban Westralians. Made in collaboration with AIWA (Aboriginal Interpreting WA), five short videos appear on AHCWA's website - one with Mark McGowan on his own where he says: Hello, my name is Mark McGowan. I am the Premier of Western Australia. This is an important message to keep Aboriginal people safe. You can die from the Corona, or get really sick. It's time to get the Corona nee...
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I was at an Earth Day expo today with some students. I cringed several times as earnest booth spokespeople used uselessly 'elevated' language to explain perfectly simple things. I was probably especially aware because I was with my English-learning students and I was listening with their ears. I wanted to tell people to speak plain English, but it would have just flustered them and made them feel bad and they really weren't trying to be knobs, it's just an unfortunate side-effect of a university education.
O, and also, (similarly to 'touching base') the phrase 'catch up'. "Let's catch up for a coffee". NO THANKS!