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
20 words that once meant something different
Words have been changing meaning — sometimes radically — as long as there have been words and speakers to speak them. Here is just a small sampling of words you may not have realized didn’t always mean what they mean today.
Global English
What’s the future of English?
‘English is of no use beyond our shores’, stated the Earl of Leicester upon returning from his tour of Europe in the late 1500s. In 2014 David Crystal ponders the future of the language.
26 Words That Have A Totally Different Meaning In Yorkshire
Yorkshire folk hear things differently from the rest of us.
Language teaching and resources
How could SLA research inform EdTech?
The criteria for evaluating the worth of any language learning software must include some assessment of its fitness for purpose. That is to say, does it facilitate learning? But how do you measure this?
Books, science, dictionaries, words and language
On Tour with George Villiers Duke of Buckingham
The Inky Fool traces the footsteps of a 17th century aristocrat, a man who cared enough to preserve his own prepositions.
The 5 Different Linguistic Styles of Exciting Goal Calls
Hearing hundreds of goals called, one right after the other, by excited announcers from various countries, can really make you notice the international differences in goal announcing style.
How authors from Dickens to Dr Seuss invented the words we use every day
Many people know that Lewis Carroll coined the word chortle, but some of these may surprise you.
A new approach to learning – with no shoes
Some believe making children take their shoes off at school is making a real difference to their learning. Podophobics look away now.
Johnson: Serious games
Here’s an interesting article from Robert Lane Greene about the science behind a couple of those language quizes we’ve featured recently.
Words known by men and women
And here’s a follow-up to the Ghent University vocabulary test some of you may have done.
Cartoon
The Element of Surprise
A visual pun from cartoonist Roland Smith.
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