In the mood for lurve?

My only concession to marking 14th February is to give thanks to St Valentine when the overhyped commercial rip-off undertaken in his name has fallen in half term, and I don't consequently have to face the horror of teaching period 1 on this day. When I do, my attempts to ignore it are swept aside as half the class get out their padded singing loveheart cards, and the other half slash their wrists. Valiantly attempting to calm this hotbed of emotion, I get a barrage of questions about my own love life. Like, how many times do I have to tell you guys, teachers don't have lives!

This time, however, I'm having fun on Valentine's day! Not only am I not teaching today, but also the Guardian has come up trumps, with two items that are really interesting on the language of love. Or language and technology. Or both...

First up is a link to an article about how "singles" are using MSN to get to know propsective lovers. It raises an interesting issue about the way this technology encourages or allows us to use language differently in a flirting situation. Some very interesting figures, too, about the number of people who are doing this - er, and they are not, contrary to popular belief in my classroom, all young people.

Next is an absolutely fantastic set of data if you want to look at how real people use text messaging. The Guardian provided a service by which readers could text in a Valentine's message for their loved one, and it appears on their website. Very cool! These are real live people and real live messages, so if you want to see a great big pile of authentic data, check it out.


Forget champagne, online chat is the way to woo

Finally this sock has found its missing pair