bertvaux@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
schrieb:
> Dear linguists and other lovers of the English language:
>
> My new online survey of world English varieties is now available
> online at
> http://www.ling.cam.ac.uk/survey/.
>
In was prepared to participate in this test but was unable to do so
because of a major fault with this survey - in order to participatee
youn have to enter a postcode - however in the Republic of Ireland,
where I was born and grew up, postcodes are not used except in the
cities of Dublin and Cork.
Of course the designers of this survey may not be interested in input
from people of Irish origin (the currrent population of the republic is
under 4 million - a minute percentage of the number of native english
speakers), but since this group has provided a dispro****tionately high
number of leading writers of English I would regard this as being a bit
shortsighted.
All in all a badly designed survey - badly designed since it doesn't
allow all speakers of English to participate.
BTW Ireland isn't the only English-speaking country not to use post
codes - as far as I can see they are rare to non-existent in the West
Indies, another area where native English speakers are not unknown.
Einde O'Callaghan
