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I’ve recently been immersed in Kate Fox’s book Watching the English, a popular anthropological tour of English idiosyncrasies. Much of her assessment of the English national character is rooted in our linguistic habits; indeed, a good half of the book is dedicated to what she calls “conversation codes”. It makes…

In addition to needing a translation service to follow the suppertime conversation between our teenagers, pity my teacher husband who faces similar linguistic challenges at work. He has long since realised that attempting to adopt the latest youth argot is a sure-fire way to attract ridicule from your students. But…

Who can resist a new gadget? The shiny box, the gleaming device, the prospect of some cool new technology to play with. But for translators there is an additional thrill in the form of the instruction manual or user guide, inevitably translated into multiple languages with varying degrees of success.…

“Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard." Wise words from American popular historian and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough. The challenge of marshalling your thoughts into lucid text will be familiar to anyone who wrangles with the written word for a…

The long shadow cast by the Covid-19 pandemic continues to affect educational outcomes. A new UK government publication describes the impact of school closures during the pandemic and concludes that an increased focus on reading in secondary schools is required to compensate for the loss of learning experienced by students…

As the year draws to a close, there is a special treat for those of us with a fondness for dictionaries as lexicographers around the world solemnly, or not so solemnly, pronounce their Word of the Year. The Oxford University Press suggests the ultimate WOTY is “judged to reflect the…

Historical language shifts are easiest to describe after the fact when you can track how a particular usage has evolved over time. Spotting language change in action can feel like trying to capture lightning in a bottle due to the unpredictability of linguistic habits. A shift in usage might be…

German has the honour of having loaned some spectacular vocabulary to English. Where would we be without Schadenfreude, Zeitgeist and Wanderlust? Some of the borrowings are more mundane in the sense that they have been fully absorbed into the English lexicon and would not strike most native speakers as foreign.…

Recently this blog looked at updates to English language requirements to facilitate recruitment of medical professionals to the UK from overseas. In India, the government has also been attempting to address linguistic barriers to the medical profession by offering medical degrees in Hindi for the first time. Until now, medicine…

I take up yoga on a regular basis and drop it again just as regularly in despair at my less than flexible limbs. There is only so much humiliation a person can take in an exercise class! Despite my inauspicious track record when it comes to sticking to a yoga…