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 for us to include, or just add a comment to the post, with the link(s) you’d like to share.
Language change and slang
And yet it moves
In my editing class at Loyola University Maryland I seldom use specimens from student newspapers, because, I tell my students, finding fault with them is like fishing with dynamite—too easy to be morally sound.
Books, dictionaries, words and language
Dictionaries, dick-tionaries and dyketionaries
Criticizing the male bias of mainstream lexicography was a serious concern for feminists in the 1970s and 1980s, and so was making alternatives to what Mary Daly dubbed the ‘dick-tionary’.
A Workshop Gathers Digital Activists Revitalizing Indigenous Languages in Colombia
Over the course of two days on June 18-19, 15 participants from across Colombia gathered in the country’s capital Bogotá for the First Gathering of Indigenous Language Digital Activists.
Mapping Metaphor
If, like me, you were intrigued by Glasgow University’s Metaphor Map but uncertain how to use it, here’s a video guide.
150 years of Alice in Wonderland
To mark Alice Day, an appreciation by Hilary McKay with gorgeous illustrations based on Tenniel’s originals.
Video
What is the Real Origin of OK?
Arika Okrent delves into the origins of a flexible interjection.
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What is the proper abbreviation for the word been?
Hi Joe. ‘Been’ is not generally abbreviated, being a very short word already. But if you wanted to abbreviate it, say in a note or a text, I suppose you could shorten it to ‘bn’ and it would be clear from the context what it meant; for example, Hve bn waiting 4 u 4 20 mins!