Spring has sprung, and if the UK weather has any respect for seasonal averages, it will soon...
Author - Gill Francis
You can’t go wrong with a hyphen or two: word-formation...
If you are a teacher or learner of English, you are probably familiar with advice beginning You do...
Are adjectives the new nouns?
I’d like first to draw together some threads from recent and not-so-recent posts on the flexibility...
Made in America? That’s so not an easy question
Today I’d like to focus on another informal frame, or sequence, which was brought to my...
“How adjective is that? Very adjective, I’d say”
We welcome back Gill Francis whose insightful blog posts last year attracted lively conversation...
Learning about transitive verbs: is there a funny side?
When you step into a taxi in Singapore, you may see a little printed sign bearing the terse...
Online dictionaries: a big ask?
In a stop-press post last week announcing Macmillan’s decision to stop printing dictionaries...
“What’s that in elephants?” A useful question for teachers...
“What’s that in elephants?” is not a question you’d naturally ask, but the fixed grammatical frame...
Are free-range eggs all they’re cracked up to be?
Today I’d like to begin by looking at the often diverse and convoluted relationships within noun...
“Save up to 35% on your fuel bills!” Some mysterious uses of the...
In the run-up to the Olympics, several athletes were signed up to appear in advertisements for the...