Love English
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Posted by Michael Rundell on April 16, 2014
A few weeks back, our Friday column on Language and Words in the News included a link to an article by Gretchen McCulloch on the grammar of “doge”. Historically, a doge was an elected ruler of Venice, but that’s not the one we’re talking about here. And although the two words are homonyms (both pronounced […]
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Posted by Stan Carey on April 14, 2014
New words are constantly entering English, though only some are destined to stick around or become standard. We might imagine them being made from scratch, and some, such as blurb and quark, were coined this way – by Gelett Burgess and James Joyce, respectively. Far more often, though, new words emerge through modification of existing […]
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Posted by Kerstin Johnson on April 11, 2014
This post contains a 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, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit a link […]
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Posted by Kerstin Johnson on April 04, 2014
This post contains a 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, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit a link […]
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Posted by Michael Rundell on April 03, 2014
I learned a great new Spanish word last week: tiquismiquis. Its equivalent in English would be something like nitpicker or fusspot. It’s not quite a case of onomatopoeia, but there’s something about the word that matches the referent, and this makes it easier to remember. Next time I come across it, I’ll know what it […]
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Posted by Michael Rundell on April 02, 2014
After a hard day at work — so busy you had to have your lunch al desko — you’re home at last. Time to change into something comfortable (so, maybe not the spray-on jeans today) and settle down to chainwatch your latest box set — perhaps one of those scary Nordic noir thrillers. Well, you […]
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Posted by Macmillan Dictionary on April 01, 2014
Three hoorays for Macmillan Dictionary! Or five, to be precise, since this month marks the day five years ago when we launched the online version of Macmillan Dictionary. A lot has happened since then. The Open Dictionary and BuzzWords sections have become much loved features of the site and with the launch of the Love […]
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Posted by Stan Carey on March 31, 2014
Colour has many figurative and metaphorical uses, independent of physics, that can reflect our identity or nature more or less directly. People might show their true colours by making an off-colour remark, or we might say the local colour of a town has brought colour to some event. I want to highlight here a particular […]
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Posted by Kerstin Johnson on March 28, 2014
This post contains a 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, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit a link […]
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Posted by John Williams on March 26, 2014
Corpus lexicographers are used to basing their linguistic judgements on authentic data, on what people have actually said or written. This approach has led to major advances in the study of language, but what it tends to underplay is what people think of their own (or other people’s) language habits, in terms of correctness or […]
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