Micro computers used as word processors complement the audio facilities, enabling the interactive teaching of all four language skills reading, liste… - David Crystal

Joke exchanges are carried on in deadly earnest, like a verbal duel-mouth-to-mouth combat. Bang, bang: you’re (linguistically) dead.

During the later part of the 19th century, it was believed that a sound of change affected the whole of a language simultaneously: one sound system would smoothly develop into the next, and all words which contained a particular sound would be affected in the same way.

The subject matter ranges from subtle forms of intellectual sarcasm and humor to the crudest possible attacks on a person's courage, sexual prowess, or relatives. At one level, attacks may be subtle and indirect, involving allusion and figurative speech; at another, there may be explicit taunts, boasts, name calling, and jokes at the other's expense.