Category: English

Empty-nest syndrome – a linguistic side-effect

I became an “empty-nester” when my daughter moved away in September to attend Leeds College of Music. Harry, our son, had left two years earlier. So

Nouning and verbing: an ask too far?

It’s been a while since I wrote about my (and your) favourite or least favourite words. But at Glasgow’s State of the City Economy Conference last week (9

Coping with Sandy: Hunkering and coorie-ing

Merriam-Webster’s “Trend Watch” reported a spike in lookups of the word “hunker” in the run-up to Hurricane (Superstorm?) Sandy. They give this CNN headline as

Word of the moment: it’s just (in)credible.

Do you ever find that a certain word or phrase keeps cropping up in your work? In your source material, I mean, not your end-product.

Lingua franca: English vs Latin

Have you ever wondered why English beat Latin to become the world’s lingua franca? Here’s Eddie Izzard’s explanation. Warning: Not Safe for Work, contains strong

Olympic linguistic games

The organisers of the 2012 Olympic Games are making a big effort to ensure that the whole of the United Kingdom feels included in the

Translators’ and editors’ skill-set: add mind-reading

Earl Bush served for many years as press secretary for Richard J. Daley, a controversial mayor of Chicago who was a forerunner to another Bush,

English, Australian-style: impressions from Down Under

Ruth Webber, a friend and generous source of marketing wisdom, moved from Scotland to Australia earlier this year. So a new city and country to

Global. It’s, like, a relative concept. Whatevs.

A recent article in the New York Times entitled “They’re, Like, Way Ahead of the Linguistic Currrrve” suggests that there’s a lot more method in

Buzzwords

A buzzword, according to Merriam Webster’s online dictionary, is: 1. a voguish word or phrase —called also buzz phrase 2. an important-sounding usually technical word