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
On looking very UK
One of the most interesting contemporary trends in English syntax is the way the present progressive has been increasing in frequency in recent decades. … A famous example … is the McDonald’s slogan ‘I’m lovin’ it’, which not so long ago would have appeared as ‘I love it’.
The Negative Canon: Verbing Weirds Language?
The conversion of a word from one word class to another is one of the ways in which English forms new words. Without that process we should not be able to go for a swim, describe an athlete as a natural, make reproduction furniture or speak of something as a must.
Books, science, dictionaries, words and languages
Bookshelfies Tumblr: The Newest Trend You NEED To Know About
What is a “bookshelfie,” you might ask? Well, it’s a selfie taken in front of your bookshelf, of course!
Study finds learning second language later in life brings brain change
The age at which a child begins to learn a second language can have a significant bearing on the structure of the adult brain, Canadian researchers report.
Babies can recognise words they heard in the womb
… this research shows that babies can do more than just hear and recognise words from when they were foetuses, they can also detect subtle changes and process complex information about words.
Audio
The Leonard Lopate Show: Language Columnist Ben Zimmer on “Bubble” (16:45)
Ben Zimmer, … language columnist for The Wall Street Journal, discusses the use of the word “bubble” in the financial sense.
Video
102 yr. old man walks us through English’s crazy spelling
102 year old Ed Ronthaler walks us through the various crazy ways that the English language spells every word wrong.
Why Chicago is ‘Stink Onions’ in the Atlas of True Names (02:51)
… this particular atlas attempts to reveal the etymological roots, or original meanings, of the names of familiar places all over the world
Fun/Pun
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