Expose a word at UQ Expo

Word usage guru Professor Roly Sussex is challenging all comers to stump him for words at the free UQ Expo in Brisbane on May 29 and 30.

"I'm hoping people can lob some curly ones that I'll have difficulty answering," he said.

More than 40,000 people are expected to attend UQ Expo at the University of Queensland's St Lucia campus from noon until 5pm both days. Dean of Students Dr Lisa Gaffney said UQ Expo would offer family entertainment as well as displays and demonstrations of the University's outstanding research, teaching and community service features.

Professor Sussex will be in the Forgan Smith Building foyer on May 29 and 30 from 1pm to 2pm, ready to answer questions like: Can you end a sentence with a preposition (if it was good enough for Shakespeare)? How bad is "bloody"? Does Australia have an English all of its own? Why do car names of the ?Seventies largely start with the letter C (Corona, Corolla, Crown, Corvette)? What's the difference between "apprise" and "appraise"?

"Can you imagine the Star Trek motto, To boldly go where no man has gone before if they hadn't split the infinitive?" he said. "Where else would boldly fit in the sentence?"

Professor Sussex, of the University's Centre for Language Teaching and Research, is an expert on language in Australia, language in its social contexts, Slavonic linguistics and the interface between language and technology.

He is rarely lost for words, with dictionaries and thesauruses of general English, Australian English, American English, South African English, historical English, Aboriginal languages, and many major European languages adorning his home and office shelves. Then there are the dictionaries and Internet sites of synonyms, acronyms, cliches, proverbs, obscenities, and multilingual usage.

He has a book in the pipeline based on a large-scale research project on the Americanisation of Australian English and his "studio of living language data"-weekly radio language talkback programs.

Professor Sussex writes a fortnightly Saturday column in The Courier Mail and appears on the popular ABC radio 4QR language talkback program on Tuesdays at 11.30am to midday. He also runs language talkback programs on radio 8DDD in Darwin and 7ZR in Hobart.

Media: For more information, contact Professor Roly Sussex, telephone 07 3365 6896 or email sussex@lingua.arts.uq.edu.au