Category: Language

English words the world likes…

My last post was about words we don’t like. This one’s about words we do. To celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2009, the British Council

Words that set our teeth on edge

I had a Twitter conversation recently with Ashleigh Grange of Plush Text Communications and Janine Libbey of P & L Translations about words we dislike. Ashleigh’s language bugbear of

The UK’s sexiest accent? Parliamo Glasgow

In a survey by the Travelodge hotel group, 5000 Brits voted the Geordie accent (Newcastle and the north-east) the nation’s sexiest. They clearly don’t appreciate

Ouch! Stung by my own spelling bee

I knew this would happen – the minute I blog about spelling, I make a spelling mistake on Twitter. The tweet was about creative and

Spelling bees in my bonnet (1)

I work with language, so it goes without saying (I hope) that I care about spelling. That said, I don’t think texting heralds the death

Spelling “speling”

This morning’s “Call Kaye” programme on BBC Radio Scotland featured an interview with Richard Lawrence Wade, whose “Free Speling” campaign aims to help English “break

The demise of Borders UK

I visited Borders UK’s Glasgow store a few days ago, feeling like a vulture as I filled my basket with cut-price books (TimeOut travel guides,

Localisation, Kiwi style.

I received an email recently from BT encouraging me to sign up to the Terminate the Rate campaign. This aims to end the fee applied

The car (auto?) industry’s Poet Laureate. Or, what’s in a name.

My last post was about Britain’s Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. Today’s is about American poet Marianne Moore and her relationship with the US car

POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS

My first post on this blog, on 1 May, celebrated Carol Ann Duffy’s appointment as Poet Laureate. Her first poem since then has been published in