This post contains a weekly selection of links related to English language today. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting related websites. A new weekly review post will be posted every Friday. Please contact us if you would like to submit a link for us to include.
News
An Amazon tribe converts the missionary.
50 years of ‘stupid grammar advice’.
Sussex University row regarding cuts to linguistics courses.
Bilingual babies get an early edge.
What is the half life of the word ‘throw’ and is it likely to sound different in 1,000 or 10,000 years?
Blog posts
Slang dictionary oddity, in 1874.
‘If English had a decent writing system there would be no use for spellchecking software’.
Learn a few interesting ways to search Google, in this post on how to make Google your English teacher.
Having comma trouble?
Tautology, not all bad.
Fun
Lingo2word is a site that ‘translates’ text message lingo into plain English.
Learn a language, 10 words a day.
Want to impress people with your knowledge of business-speak? Try this out.
The learning English film project.
The importance of learning a second language (video).
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Hi, I wanted to post my thoughts on the Macmillan dictionary website. I know this isn’t the right place to do it, but for a website that’s supposedly in beta, there isn’t any email id mentioned or any comments section on the website.
Anyway, just wanted to ask if American and British pronunciations and spellings could be listed on the same page? At the moment, the dictionary is suffering from a split personality with two versions online- the American and British. Right now the default version is British, and if I want the American version to show, I change it in the settings. Why even separate them? Wouldn’t it be simpler to have them both on the same page?
That said, I’ve been really impressed with the site, especially the thesaurus. It even seems to be an improvement on the one used in the MED CD. I’d been using the Encarta dictionary and thesaurus online so far, but with the Encarta website closing down soon, the arrival of Macmillandictionary.com couldn’t have been more timely.
Thank you for your positive feedback on the dictionary. To respond to your query: in designing the basic entry layout, we chose to show only one pronunciation in the interests of keeping the page clean and simple. But your point about wanting to be able to compare British and American pronunciations quickly and easily is a good one, and will most certainly be considered at the next one of our regular review meetings. We welcome feedback from dictionary users. On the About page of the site, we list three contact email addresses for various types of comments and queries. I hope this answers your questions. Thank you once again for taking the time to write to us.