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
Clean eating: yet another pious diet to squeeze the joy out of good food
“Clean” can be a loaded word. Celebrated food writer Jay Rayner doesn’t like it being applied to what we eat.
Global English
Map of the percentage of people speaking English in the EU by country
Some surprises here. Why not try and guess before you click the link?
Language teaching and resources
Can Games Make High-Stakes Tests Obsolete?
The promise of game-based learning is not only about increased student engagement and intrinsic motivation, but also about changing the way we think about assessment so that it is no longer in a category by itself.
Books, science, dictionaries, words and language
Dear Mr Gove: You are too unexpert to determine young people’s reading
Taking issue – not for the first time – with the government’s education policies, poet Michael Rosen also explains (in a comment BTL) why he chose to use the rare “unexpert” in preference to the standard “inexpert”. Maybe it will catch on…
Your Facebook personality: Compare your use of language to friends and celebrities
Are you more like Barack Obama or Mark Zuckerberg? Or perhaps Bill Gates is your online doppelganger. A new tool allows you to compare your personality traits with those of famous people and your friends.
Beautiful Twitter bots tell us what the future of automation is all about
Computers still can’t compete with humans when it comes to creativity. But with the right human touch, computers can do beautiful things.
New Editing and Proofreading Marks for use on blogs and social media
A witty take on some of the quirks of social media by “cartoonist, illustrator, writer and general layabout” Gemma Correll.
A good pun is its own reword
Samuel Johnson may have regarded puns as the lowest form of wit, but I agree with Jonathan Swift: “Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise, but he that is without it.”
More Pun Fun
Artist Turns Everyday Sayings Into Clever Pun Illustrations
Amusing pun illustrations from Oman-based graphic designer and illustrator Nabhan Abdullatif.
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