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
8 pronunciation errors that made the English language what it is today
Malapropisms and mispronunciations are fairly common. The 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary lists 171,476 words as being in common use. But the average person’s vocabulary is tens of thousands smaller, and the number of words they use every day smaller still.
In Defense of Talking Funny
Dialects are a funny thing: everyone speaks one, but we only notice them when they’ve been dislocated.
Books, science, dictionaries, words and language
England ‘divided into readers and watchers’
The country is divided into two nations, those who read weekly or daily, and those who prefer TV and DVDs.
14-year-old floors the world with deceptively simple poem
A short poem with palindromic lines written by a 14-year-old boy and posted online by his older brother has stopped Twitter in its tracks, attracting over 100,000 retweets in less than 24 hours.
Global English
7 Backstories Behind Everyday Technology Terms
Common terms take on a second meaning when it comes to the tech world. Everyday words are lifted from the dictionary and crafted to have entirely different meanings to represent their computer counterparts.
In Defense Of Adverbs
The empty use of intensifiers is partly responsible for adverbs’ bad reputation. But slews of other, more useful adverbs exist.
Language teaching and resources
12 Rules for Learning Foreign Languages in Record Time — The Only Post You’ll Ever Need
It turns out, there is no language-learning gene, but there are tools and tricks for faster learning…
St Patrick’s Day
Festival Webquests: St Patrick’s Day
Who was St Patrick? What is the history of St Patrick’s Day? In this webquest you will find the answer to these questions and learn about how 17th March is celebrated around the world.
Video
Breaking the language barrier: Tim Doner at TEDxTeen
Knowing a language is a lot more than knowing a couple of words out of a dictionary.
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