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.
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Books, science, dictionaries, words and language
Helvetica: one font to rule them all
For the past 50 years Helvetica has dominated design. But, now its pioneer Mike Parker has passed away, is the era of this sleek, modernist typeface drawing to a close?
32 Books That Will Actually Change Your Life
Believe it or not, a book about zombies can change your life. That’s because it’s not just about eating brains, it looks at cultural divides, politics, war, and conflicts that seem petty once the fate of the world is at stake.
13 Words You Probably Didn’t Know Were Coined By Authors
English has had its fair share of literary giants over the years who, from Chaucer and Milton to Dickens and even Dr. Seuss, have each contributed words to our language.
23 Sentence Diagrams That Show The Brilliance Of Famous Novels’ Opening Lines
In their magna opera, famous authors have written some of the most beautiful and well-known lines in literature. Elements like word order, vocabulary, and grammatical construction give these sentences their power. To demonstrate this, Pop Chat Lab diagrammed some famous novels’ first lines.
Language teaching and resources
Grammar exercise books: how debate is dressed up as certainty
The great thing about worksheets is the apparent certainty of what is being ‘taught’. There are only right and wrong answers. This becomes amusing when you come across a category or term that you know is contested by people who know something about the subject.
British and American English
“Worrying”
I have the impression that concerning and worrying are on the rise as adjectives. To my mind, the conventionally “correct” alternative to both would be either troubling or worrisome.
National Grammar Day (US)
March Madness
Wow. Very poem.
Amaze syllabifying.
Because grammarday
A Plea for Sanity this National (US) Grammar Day
Remember, this National Grammar Day, that there are people all around you with varying degrees of knowledge of and appreciation for the intricacies of English. Instead of calling people out on March 4th for all the usages they get wrong, how about pointing out all the thing things that people–against all odds–get right?
ACES 2014 National Grammar Day Tweeted Haiku Contest entries
GrammarDay haikus
must follow the rules, or else—
“too long, didn’t read.”
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