This post contains a weekly selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English and language change, and language education too.

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Global English

On antinyms
Regular readers of this blog will recall a previous post about new words, one of which is bagonizing. We bagonized. All other passengers came, took up their bags and went, until eventually we were the only ones left at the carousel.

Beijing Renews English-Language Drive
Public servants in Beijing will face considerable pressure over the next five years to learn English after the city government launched a campaign to improve their language skills and penalize those who fail to meet expected proficiency levels.

Language change and slang

On Language, The Web Is At War With Itself
Internet memes and e-lingo are pumping new vitality into popular English parlance. But is it possible the Internet could also be stifling creativity in language? More on that in a moment.

Don’t forget to do the Meme Quiz!

‘Not a word’ is not an argument
Irregardless, supposably, ain’t, impactful, unfriend, defriend, disincentivise, signage, mentee, guesstimate, probletunity, orientate, loginned… Do these words make you twitchy? Would you say that some of them are not words? Disincentivise doesn’t fill me with thrills, but there’s no doubting its validity. Orientate is probably less reviled, but some people still reject its status as a word.

Language teaching and resources

Technology affecting English language in schools – Survey
Some teachers have complained about the poor performance of students in English Language examinations due to technology.

Improve your English

Words in the News: Losing One’s Touch
If you lose your touch, you can no longer do something as well as you could before.

How to Write Clear Sentences
Good writing is clear and concise and gets to the point. Readers don’t want to rummage through a messy verbal flea market to discover one or two sparkly gems of information.

Books, words, science and the history of language

Verbal cues improve visual detection
The study demonstrated that language can change what we see and can also enhance perceptual sensitivity. Verbal cues can influence even the most elementary visual processing and inform our understanding of how language affects perception.

When Did We First ‘Rock the Mic’?
Being a historical lexicographer in the 21st century is a task worthy of Janus, with one eye on the language’s past and another on new information about language that is emerging from advances in the digital world. So it was only fitting that my conference paper focused on how the Web is opening up previously unexplored terrain in documenting the history of American slang.

This post contains a weekly selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English and language change, and language education too.

Do contact us if you would like to submit a link for us to include. We’d love to hear from you.

Global English

The Economist Debates: English
This house believes that the English-speaking world should adopt American English.

Disney to expand language schools in China
Mickey Mouse might not be the most obvious choice as a language teacher but he and Donald Duck are being put to work in China by Walt Disney as part of a rapid expansion of a schools programme that aims to teach English to 150,000 children a year by 2015.

Linguists Debate: Does Obama Talk Like a Girl?
Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker caused a stir last week by stating, “If Bill Clinton was our first black president, as Toni Morrison once proclaimed, then Barack Obama may be our first woman president.”

Language change and slang

Many English Speakers Cannot Understand Basic Grammar
Research into grammar by academics at Northumbria University suggests that a significant proportion of native English speakers are unable to understand some basic sentences.

Overusing words dulls their meanings
Is there a point when words should be put to rest? My picks would be amazing and phenomenal. These two have crept into the lexicon of so many they have lost their power.

Language teaching and resources

Japanese Study English By…Tweeting?
Twitter followers in Japan have demonstrated their fervor for the social networking tool, setting a world record in generating “tweets per second” after a recent World Cup game. Now, creative merchants are coming up with books and blogs that connect Twitter with another national infatuation: Learning English.

EMCC professor rewrites English learning
Traditionally, college-level students who do not speak English but want to study in the United States must pass the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL, exam before they can begin classes. Those who do not pass are sequestered into English as a Second Language, or ESL, courses until they can prove their profi-ciency in the language, at which time they may matriculate into regular college courses.

Improve your English

On since/ago
The rule says that since and ago are incompatible, because since refers to an event that has current relevance whereas ago refers to a completed event in the past.

Books, words, science and the history of language

The Origins of ‘One-Off’
The off in one-off does not, in fact, stem from some corruption of the word of. Rather, this British usage of off typically appears with a number to indicate a quantity of items produced in some manufacturing process.

Is the Thesaurus Your Friend?
Using or not using a thesaurus is an individual choice for each writer. Many writers agree with King that using a thesaurus ultimately cramps their creativity. But if you feel that a thesaurus would benefit your writing, why not use it?

Funny

Cartoon: Meals on Wheels

This post contains a weekly selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English and language change, and language education too.

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Global English – in the world of sport

Can tennis writers tell their eggs from their bagels?
“When you speak to tennis journalists,” Tim Henman once said, “you notice how little they understand. I am embarrassed for them. They know nothing about the game.” It was a scathing critique and the Observer led the case for the defence, arguing that the role of the tennis press is to paint a broad picture rather than display an intimate knowledge of tactics and technique.

With so many nations in WCup what language do referees use?
Thirty referees from 28 countries, including our very own Subkhiddin Mohd Salleh, are officiating at the World Cup in South Africa.
Have you ever wondered what is the language they use to keep all the players, plus the coaches on the sidelines, in check when things get a bit fiery?

Language change and slang

‘Non-moms’ find child-free terminology offensive
Though it may seem like trivial semantics, Stern says the language used by a society is indicative of its values.

On needed words
A guest appearance on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Saturday Live’ last week has initiated a flurry of correspondence, and the only place to focus it seems to be this blog. Once again it is the ludic propensity of language that has grabbed the popular imagination – in the same way that the ‘foreign catch-phrases’ theme (see my last post) has done.

Improve your English

From bitch to beach
It is interesting that the potential confusion can extend into written English. You’d think that even if hearing the difference is difficult, nevertheless seeing it and spelling it would be straightforward.

Books, words, science and the history of language

3D fatigue
Films in 3D are the latest wheeze to get bums on seats in cinemas and 3D-TV is now technically available if you can afford the set and can find something to watch on it. However, a problem has surfaced: eyestrain. Some filmgoers say that viewing movies using special glasses is causing them eye problems, headaches and nausea.

Orangutans at Durrell contribute to dictionary
Experts from St Andrews University spent time at Durrell creating what’s being described as the ape dictionary.

Seeing Languages Differently
How we see the world impacts our use of language and our use of language impacts how we see the world. Cognitive scientists in the vein of Benjamin Whorf regularly investigate the connections to thought and language use, including how visual perception varies across languages.

Video

David Crystal – Texts and Tweets: myths and realities (31 minutes)

This post contains a weekly selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English and language change, and language education too.

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Global English

The biggest vocabulary?
English is a rich and beautiful language, not least because England has been conquered by Vikings and Normans, and has happily been open to foreign influence through its history.

Phrases We Love Too Much
A couple of colleagues and readers have also noted the rampant use of the expression “go viral” to describe anything that spreads widely online.

The new custodians of English language
Conceit comes before a fall. I was roundly thrashed. The two young ladies began doubling and tripling their word scores, surveying the board and measuring semantic possibilities as Bonaparte might have surveyed a battlefield. The score sheet was spattered with the blood of my ego.

Language change and slang

The ‘Tweet’ Debate
Of course, new technology terms sprout and spread faster than ever. And we don’t want to seem paleolithic. But we favor established usage and ordinary words over the latest jargon or buzzwords.

Language evolves following a ‘bumpy ride‘ not straightforward path
Linguistic change differs from biological evolution and socio-cultural change because of the way language is organized and learned.

Improve your English

Words and Their Stories: Mouth Expressions
People use their mouths for many things. They eat, talk, shout and sing. They smile and they kiss. In the English language, there are many expressions using the word mouth. But some of them are not so nice.

Business English metaphors
Business English uses different vocabulary and metaphors from everyday speech. Metaphors are word pictures that help explain a situation by comparing it to something else. In business, metaphors are borrowed from other disciplines.

Mind the Gap: There’s a Name for It
The use of a verb phrase in the present tense to refer to an event that took place in the past (“So this guy walks into a bar . . .”): historical present.

Language technology

New software can detect depression in bloggers’ texts
The software, developed at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), is capable of identifying language that can indicate the writer’s psychological state, which could serve as a screening tool.

Books, words, science and the history of language

Meet the New Swing Voters: Walmart Moms
“Walmart Moms are cross-pressured and conflicted–they approve of President Obama and want to see a government that helps people rather than stays out of the way. Yet, these voters are strongly negative toward Congress and lean toward voting for Republicans in the Fall. Walmart Moms are the quintessential swing vote …”

Top 40 Chicago Words—Our Contributions to the English Language
The moment of creation for a word often remains elusive. Typically (at least before the Internet age), a word gains popularity in local speech and then gets written down somewhere. When lexicographers start tracing lineage, the closest they can come to pinpointing a word’s birth is frequently its first appearance in print.

How do bilingual children distinguish between languages?

Klingon and other “crazy ideas” in book about invented tongues
Language makes us human. So – why mess with it?

Funny

The 3 Most Common Uses of Irony
What is important to remember is that while these people are arguing back and forth about it, the rest of us are doing more interesting things …

This post contains a weekly selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English and language change, and language education too.

Do contact us if you would like to submit a link for us to include. We’d love to hear from you.

Global English

Britain’s new romance language is English
Some also argue that English is best learned in a country where it’s spoken everyday, rather than forcing people into classrooms abroad, which could be of varying standards and potentially costly.

Canada – a linguistic battleground between the US and Britain
Though Canada is still part of the Commonwealth, our unique history of colonisation and the sheer geographic range of the country make the enforcement of consistent language rules difficult from coast to coast.

40 South Africanisms you should know
HUNDREDS: Normally repeated twice in a sentence as in “Hundreds, bru, hundreds.” It expresses either total agreement with what someone has just said, or confirmation that your life is all good [...] Can also be used as a way of simply saying yes.

Language change and slang

Britain declares war on words that snuck into our skedule…
Other leading hates include ‘snuck’ as the past tense of ‘sneak’ and ‘dove’ as the past tense of ‘dive’; driver’s license instead of driving licence; overly rather than over; autopsy for post-mortem; burglarized instead of burgled; filling out forms instead of filling them in; fries for chips; chips for crisps; and food to go as opposed to take away.

‘New York Times’ Bans the Word ‘Tweet’
“One test is to ask yourself whether people outside of a target group regularly employ the terms in question. Many people use Twitter, but many don’t; my guess is that few in the latter group routinely refer to “tweets” or “tweeting.” Someday, “tweet” may be as common as “e-mail.” Or another service may elbow Twitter aside next year, and “tweet” may fade into oblivion. [...]”

Don’t Like English Spelling? Tuf Luk
The argument that English spelling should be overhauled is nothing new, of course. Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain were both advocates for “spelling reform,” and George Bernard Shaw’s will stipulated that a competition should be held to develop a new, more efficient English writing system.

Improve your English

Spelling mistakes – public and embarrassing ones
Let’s be honest – we all make spelling mistakes sometimes. It may be because we don’t know the spelling, or we think we know it but we are wrong. Often it’s just a typo or lack of concentration and editing. Sometimes the spelling mistake doesn’t matter too much, but other times – it really does!

Excising Abstract Appendages: Cut the Clutter
Whatever we call them, expressions such as basic fundamentals, new innovations, past history, and future plans are wasteful.

English picture idioms

Language teaching and resources

Redlined. Correction isn’t the most important thing
For schoolchildren, the red pen has long been a fearsome weapon, blazoning the marks of failure on once pristine writing assignments. And in recent years, many teachers have turned down the volume, switching from red’s loud rebuke to gentler purple pens. Now research has illuminated another aspect of the red-pen effect: A study published last month reveals that teachers armed with red pens actually grade more severely than those using blue.

English Language Learners and the Power of Personal Stories
Community organizers talk about the difference between “irritation” and “agitation.” We tend to irritate people when we push them to do what we want them to do — when we “fill up the pail,” in the words of William Butler Yeats. But we can agitate people when we challenge them to take action on something that they believe is in their self-interest. That’s when we can “light a fire.”

G is for Gerund
Why this antipathy to the poor old gerund?

Funny

David Mitchell’s Soap Box: Authenticity
Pudding, sweet or dessert? ‘Valett’ or ‘valay’? David worries about the linguistic mantraps the English set each other and the challenge of being authentically him.

This post contains a weekly selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English and language change.

Please contact us if you would like to submit a link for us to include. We’d love to hear from you.

Global English

What Does “BP” Stand For?
Since the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig back in April, the oil company’s name has been variously interpreted as “Big Profits,” “Biggest Polluter,” “Broken Promises,” and “Beyond Patience.”

On foreign ludicity
It’s good to see ludic linguistic ingenuity alive and well, and engaging with foreign languages – though I wonder, in this day and age, what proportion of the population will get the jokes.

Crash blossom finds remain
You’d think a team of subeditors would have been called out on a crash blossom alert, and fixed it. But not so.

Just Talking To Native Speakers Is The Worst Way To Learn A Language
In actuality, one of the major concepts of ALG [Automatic Language Growth] is that words are not the key to a language, meaning is. You could memorize 5,000 words from a dictionary and not be able to string a sentence together or express yourself in any meaningful way.

Language change and slang

Cool
It all started in January, when Toby Lichtig reviewed “Journey by Moonlight,” a 1937 novel by the Hungarian writer Antal Szerb that has recently been translated into English by Len Rix. Lichtig gave a thumbs up to Rix’s rendering, but he complained about the text’s occasional anachronisms, particularly the use of cool “in its contemporary sense” …

Improve your English

Is a Troop One Person or a Group?
Memorial Day is next week, when we in the U.S. honor members of the military who have died in the line of duty. So in today’s article I’ll answer a question some readers have had about the word “troops.”

What’s the best way to break bad news?
The delivery of bad news is now a successful money-spinning television format. Millions tune in to see Lord Alan Sugar point his finger and say: “You’re fired” or Simon Cowell to simply roll his eyes and tell another singer they’ve failed the audition. But real life is different.

World Cup Spelling – noticing vowels
An activity to help people spell the names of hte 2010 World Cup countries.

Language teaching and resources

Month in Review – May’s Most Popular Items
The school year is winding down for many of us, but there is still time to try something new in the classroom. If that’s not the case for you, May’s most popular links might give you something to think about for next fall when school starts again.

Books, words, science and the history of language

Minifalsehood: We can’t tell what a word is!?!?

I am looking at the question: How many words are there in a language? I’d like to know for languages in general, comparatively, and for pedagogical reasons, in some well known western language which may as well be English.
For possible answers, check this blog post.

Second language learners recall native language when reading
Adults fluent in English whose first language is Chinese retrieve their native language when reading in English, according to new research in the June 2 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. This study suggests that people who learn a second language in adolescence or later recall the sounds of words from their native language.

This post contains a weekly selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English and language change.

Please contact us if you would like to submit a link for us to include. We’d love to hear from you.

Global English

‘Globish’ (Excerpt)
Our story begins with a human sacrifice. Stranger than this, it starts in a Danish swamp. Perhaps strangest of all, we owe this information about the violent origins of the English-speaking world to the Roman historian Tacitus, the author of Germania, ‘On the Origin and Character of Germany’. […] There are […] seven tribes about whom there is ‘nothing noteworthy’ to say, except that they worship Nerthus, the goddess Mother Earth, ‘a ceremony performed by slaves who are immediately afterwards drowned in the lake’. One of these seven barbarous tribes was ‘the Anglii’, better known to history as the Angles.

Words to live by
A primer on words and phrases you hear in New Orleans and now on HBO’s new series “Treme.”

Jamaican
The news report is written in standard English, the regular language of educated and official discourse in the island. This poses the question: how best can the paper record the words spoken in Jamaican Creole, the words actually uttered by witnesses and bystanders?

Fingerspitzengefühl
What all of these situations have in common is that language differences align with ethnic differences, in a situation with considerable (and perhaps increasing) ethnic diversity in a given geographical area. Given that alignment, the amount of bilingualism or multi-lingualism seems to be secondary in determining whether controversies will arise about the use of minority languages.

Many English learners still struggle with the language
Nearly 60% in California high schools are not proficient despite more than six years of a U.S. education. Flaws in the English-language programs could imperil the state’s economic future, report says.

Give Chinglish a break
The New York Times recently carried an article about Chinglish, which was for some time their most e-mailed article. Indeed, it created such a reader response and so much buzz in the blogosphere that the newspaper called for readers to send in their own pictures of “strange signs from abroad.” Even an academic blog in the field pitched in by offering a series of analyses to illuminate how “unintentional errors of translation from Chinese result in ludicrous or impenetrable English.”
[Thank you to Ingrid Piller for sending the link.]

Language change and slang

On Language – Fraught
Here we have a case of a very old word undergoing a rapid shift in contemporary usage. In Middle English, fraught (an etymological cousin of freight) was a verb meaning “to load (a ship),” and the identical form could serve as a past participle meaning “laden (with).” While the verb dropped out of the language almost entirely, the past participle stuck around, typically followed by “with” and an object — often a burden, whether real or figurative.

War of words
But what really gets the veins in my forehead popping these days is language. There is no accounting for taste, and no better example of this truth exists than word usage. I held back as long as I could, but can no longer stay silent.

Where Do New Words Come From?
We use dozens of new words every year, but we rarely think of their origins. Each has its own unique use, but when did it suddenly appear in our vocabulary?

Concern over accented teachers not original to Arizona
The state of Arizona has gotten a lot of attention lately for its decision to remove teachers who speak with pronounced foreign accents and/or whose speech is ungrammatical from classrooms with students learning to speak English. But the idea wasn’t original to the Arizona Board of Education.

10 tech buzzwords we should stop using
We’re in the second decade of the new millennium, and times have changed a lot since we left the ’90s. Once-elusive gadgets like laptops, media players, and even mobile phones have become so ubiquitous, it’s hard to imagine how we got by before they came along.

Language teaching and resources

50 Coolest Online Tools for Word Nerds
Learning and using new words can be one of the great pleasures of language. While university courses can help you to build your vocabulary, seeking out words, wordplay, and information is essential to becoming a true word nerd. These online tools can help you along, making it simple to learn new words, find out where they came from and just plain play with words.

Video: Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution! (16 minutes)
Is there a ‘crisis of human resources’?

Linguist challenges language learning assessment
“The test result is really unexpected, because linguists see language acquisition as just a natural part of being human. We acquire languages because we are biologically endowed with a language faculty,” MacSwan said. “Everybody learns a language effortlessly and without instruction, so why would we find kids who don’t learn a language at all? The consequences are huge for these kids. They very often end up in special education programs because schools don’t know what to do with them.”

Books, words, science and the history of language

Globish For Beginners
McCrum [...] explains that Globish is an overwhelmingly economic phenomenon—the language of Singaporean businessmen closing deals with the help of a small arsenal of English words, and of European officials calming financial markets by uttering stock phrases on television. He offers a journalistic account of its worldwide use in tandem with a historical one of the development of English as it made its way around the world

English as a Juggernaut Conquers the World With Glee and an OMG
“Globish” would be a natural e-book, partly because of its subject matter. It’s a meditation on the English language, about where it’s been and where it’s going. And if English words are going anywhere, they’re going online. Like would-be starlets bound for Hollywood, they’re aching to be backlit.

Idioms, Adages and “Black Sheep” Round Out Jack’s Latest
The book is full of strange and cool things. Our language includes hundred of idioms, words and phrases we all use on a daily basis where the words we use actually mean nothing in the context of a conversation we are having, and yet we all instinctively know what they mean and yet haven’t, so far, wondered why we do it.

Funny

How to name a volcano
Hmmmmm

This post contains a weekly selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English and language change. Please contact us if you would like to submit a link for us to include.

Global English

Goddess English of Uttar Pradesh
There’s no denying that at the heart of India’s new prosperity is a foreign language, and that the opportunistic acceptance of English has improved the lives of millions of Indians. There are huge benefits in exploiting a stronger cultural force instead of defying it.

Language change and slang

Mapping the Demographics of American English with Twitter
To say Twitter is colloquial is putting it lightly. “Brother,” for example, occurs in Twitter data during the week of May 10-17, 2010 with an average frequency of once every 7,338 words, not too distant from its frequency in its closest cousin, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (once every 9,405 words).

we need to v
“We need to talk”, “We have to talk”, “We’ve got to talk” — all ways of starting a two-person discourse about some potentially troubling topic.

Improve your English

Wales, Belgium and other units of measurement
Perhaps, as with metric and imperial measurements, such comparisons should be given convenient abbreviations: SoWs (size of Wales), SoBs (size of Belgium), OSPs (Olympic swimming pools), DDBs (buses) and so on. Thus the Kruger national park in South Africa measures 1 SoW (Daily Telegraph), as do Lesotho (London Evening Standard) and Israel (Times), whereas Lake Nzerakera in Tanzania is 2 SoBs (Observer).

On plural adjectives
When people talk about a concept that is an institution or organization, the tendency is to keep the plural form, and this is especially so when there’s a semantic contrast with the singular form:

Spelling loanwords in English and other languages
There are lots of reasons why English spelling is like it is but one of them is that when words are borrowed from other languages the English usually retain the spelling.

Language teaching

Silent Periods can also be good for teachers
I once had a class of advanced level teenagers. They were all excellent speakers and we were using an IELTS coursebook (which was actually pretty good). After the first couple of weeks, it became clear the class was starting to sort of “rot” – there was less discussion, less involvement, and the old “drawing blood from a stone” impression was starting to set in for me as a teacher. The more I tried to improve the class activities and content and make my teaching approach engaging, the further the students appear to sink into a kind of torpor.

Funny

David Mitchell’s Soap Box: Dear America
America’s spelling and grammar comes under the glare of David’s beady eye. How do you think the Queen feels about the wanton abuse of her English?

My last post seemed to go down quite well, so I thought I’d have another look at the weird and wonderful words associated with animals in the English language, this time collective nouns.

We’re all familiar with some of the strange words that can be used to describe groups of animals – a pod of dolphins or a school of fish, for example – but there are many more out there. Some of them are so bizarre, you’d have no hope of ever guessing them. Others are perhaps just as hard to guess, but once you know them, they seem exquisitely appropriate. And then, of course, there are the ones that are just plain funny.

So, let’s start with some easy ones – can you match the collective nouns below with the correct animals?

skein               loons
raft                 peacocks
clan of             geese
swarm            monkeys
tribe                hyenas
leap                 asses
charm            whales
school              finches
ostentation       ants
drove                 leopards

How did you get on? Alright, how about some very appropriate seeming ones:

scurry                 ducks
labour                giraffes
ambush             crocodiles
parliament       moles
float                 starlings
murmuration        rats
tower                crows
paddling         bats
cloud                squirrels
mischief          tigers

Now, what type of animal do you imagine these collective nouns might apply to?

murder
congress
gang
convocation
bazaar
sleuth
quarrel
cast
mob
kettle

And finally, the truly bizarre – what on earth do you think these might be?

clowder
quiver
cete
knot
battery

I’ll close with what must be perhaps the cutest of the lot, and certainly, I think, my favourite: a huddle of penguins.

Answers

(Once again, there are sometimes several different words that can be used – I’ve gone for the most common, or the most entertaining!)

skein of geese
raft of loons
clan of hyenas
swarm of ants
tribe of monkeys
leap of leopards
charm of finches
school of whales
ostentation of peacocks
drove of asses

scurry of squirrels
labour of moles
ambush of tigers
parliament of crows
float of crocodiles
murmuration of starlings
tower of giraffes
paddling of ducks
cloud of bats
mischief of rats

murder of crows
congress of baboons
gang of buffalo
convocation of eagles
bazaar of guillemots
sleuth of bears
quarrel of sparrows
cast of ferrets
mob of emus
kettle of hawks

clowder of cats
quiver of cobras
cete of badgers
knot of toads
battery of barracudas

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I was watching one of those ‘ahh-inducing’ animal rescue programmes the other day, and noticed a rather fun, and cute, word for the young of a particular species (I can’t tell you what it was, as it’s in the quiz below).

Anyway, it set me thinking. We’re all familiar with terms like cub, pup, kit and calf, but do you know how many different species they can relate to? It’s actually a lot more than I would have thought; some of them pretty much to be expected, others a bit of a surprise.

So just for fun, see if you can put these into the right groups of pup, kit, calf and cub:

guinea pig          dolphin           giraffe          raccoon       walrus
bat                        chinchilla       hippopotamus                 skunk
giraffe                  badger             rabbit         seal                 bat

How did you get on? The answers are shown below.

What about other words for animals’ young, though, including the one that caught my interest the other day? Well, see if you can work out what these babies would be called:

crocodile                             hedgehog                         gorilla                 alpaca
peacock                               possum                             owl                        pigeon
cockroach                          eel                                       hare                      squirrel

(I should point out that there is some disagreement on the ‘right’ term to use for some of these – particularly some of the pup / kit / cub ones – depending on what reference source you use. I’ve gone for the most common usage, but if you got something different, you’re probably right somewhere!)

It’s fascinating, though, that animals which seem so different – a cat and a squirrel, or a dolphin and a giraffe, for example – can have the same word for the name of their young. And whilst a baby dolphin is a calf, a baby shark is a pup (Yes, I know, mammal versus fish, but even so). There are some really quite appropriate-seeming names too though – a baby snake can be called (among other things) a snakelet, a baby spider is a spiderling, and a baby platypus is a puggle (sounds like something JK Rowling might have come up with!).

Of course, we call our own young anything from baby to bairn to tot, toddler or urchin, so I suppose it’s not that surprising that there are so many words out there for offspring.

Answers

pup                            kit                            calf                                cub
guinea pig               chinchilla               dolphin                        badger
bat                              rabbit                      giraffe                           raccoon
seal                            skunk                       hippopotamus          walrus

crocodile – hatchling      hedgehog – hoglet              gorilla – infant
alpaca – cria                       peacock – peachick           possum – joey
owl – owlet                           pigeon – squab                    cockroach – nymph
eel – elver                             hare – leveret                       squirrel – kitten