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When reading accounts of seismic historical events, I have always been struck by the extent to which ordinary people go about their daily business in a way that is remarkably unchanged. As we witness exactly this kind of tumultuous period in real time, I am sure the same observation will…

Humans are inherently tribal. We seek out other people like us and our sense of belonging is often reinforced by the language we use to communicate with our chosen group. This is the premise for Susie Dent’s wonderful exploration of the language used by Britain’s “Modern Tribes”. Whether these groups…

  English is a global language and inevitably has influenced vocabulary in other languages. For whatever reason, there often seems to be a certain cachet associated with English phrases and lexical items. In German, marketing texts in particular have a fondness for lobbing in English vocabulary. Unfortunately for the translator,…

  In 2002 David and Ben Crystal published “Shakespeare’s words: a glossary and language companion”, a detailed linguistic analysis of Shakespeare’s texts, giving up-to-date definitions of vocabulary and links to source quotations. Professor Jonathan Bate praised the book as “the most comprehensive guide to Shakespeare's astonishing linguistic inventiveness”. The book…

  Over the Christmas season this blog debated politically correct seasonal greetings, reflecting on a phenomenon that has been referred to a as a “manufactroversy” or manufactured controversy (or more pithily perhaps a “nontroversy”). Both these lexical items are fine examples of the portmanteau, “a linguistic blend of words, in…

  According to a recent YouGov survey, a quarter of the British population report being “very or fairly bothered” when they hear those from a non-English speaking country talking to each other in their own language when in the UK. It’s hard to know where to begin with an assessment…

“Liberty … means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear” George Orwell   This week’s blog considers freedom of speech and the right to hold unpopular opinions. As the world waits to see how the coronavirus outbreak will unfold, the extent to which the virus…

  My previous blog on the differences between languages in the way they categorise the colour spectrum prompted an exploration of the etymological origins of colour words in English. Maybe you’ve always wondered which came first: the colour orange or the fruit*, at any rate, this week’s blog should expand…

  A while ago, esteemed linguistic tweeter @HaggardHawks recounted: “Not all languages have words for all the basic colours. But a study in 1969 found that all languages have words for BLACK and WHITE—and if a language has a third colour in its vocabulary, then it is always RED”. The…

New Year, new you. It’s that time where you reflect on your failings and resolve to improve. For me, it’s something of an annual tradition to commit to resurrecting my fading, and frankly never brilliant, Spanish skills. Last year I made a good stab at it and lasted several months…