“La plume de ma tante est sur la table” is often cited as an example of the irrelevant rote learning that used to give language teaching a bad name. Here’s an overview of the etymology of “plume”: 1. From Online Etymology Dictionary: plume late 14c., “a feather” (especially a large and conspicuous one), from O.Fr. plume, from …
Category archives: English
Teaching the language love
A number of recent articles in the UK and US press point to a lively interest in foreign language learning and teaching that isn’t necessarily reflected in our school pupils’ language uptake. Some of those articles are listed here: Foreign language study vital to U.S. students by Gene A. Budig (a former president of three …
Serendipity and the scents of war
I wrote the other day about scent, as one of my favourite words (serendipity’s another). Scent isn’t a word you’d normally associate with the war in Afghanistan. But it cropped up in a Radio Scotland programme, Black Watch, 3 Scots: A War in Their Own Words, recounting life in the Afghan war zones. The account takes …
…and the words the world just can’t abide
The British Council’s 75th anniversary poll of its students’ English language preferences also surveyed their least favoured words. The 10 most disliked English words were: Cancer Racism Corruption Terrorism Slavery Flatulence Killing Study Herringbone Fail Pretty understandable choices, although flatulence seems a far lesser evil compared with others on the list. But you can’t help …
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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 conducted a poll to find out its students’ favourite English words. The top ten were: Love God Peace Awesome Hello Freedom Gorgeous Sunshine Health Happiness In another poll, carried out …
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 day was incentivise, Janine’s prioritise and mine diarise. My current handbag-book for the train and doctors’/dentists’ waiting rooms is “The English Language” by David Crystal. I was surprised to find …
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 the finer tones in life: “Bahookie”, by the way, is a Scottish word for your bottom, behind, backside, or “rearward contours”. One look at the Glaswegians thronging the city streets …
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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 tech-savvy CV ideas, as featured in the Huffington Post. An area, I commented, where Elle Woods of Legally Blond Blonde led the way with her Harvard application on video. That’ll …
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 of the English language and I don’t fall from my chair with horror if an email or text arrives with minor spelling mistakes. Indeed, I think texting and Twitterese are new …
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 out of the cage [of spelling] that’s been holding us all prisoners for over 250 years”. Richard isn’t proposing a spelling free-for-all: his goal is to modernise English and create …