If you work with language and love your job, one way to share your enthusiasm is to take part in career days or simply talk to pupils at your local school about your work and why you enjoy it. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, language teachers will thank you for your efforts. I’ve attended …
Category archives: Language
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 …
Top 100 Language Blogs – voting now open
Voting is now open for the Top 100 Language Blogs 2010 competition organised by LexioPhiles, for which we’ve been nominated in the “Language Professionals” category. Voting takes place from 12-24 May 2010. If you’d like to vote for Words to good effect, you can do so here. Thank you! By Marian Dougan
The “K” word on Twitter
One of the things I love about Twitter is the way it puts you in touch with interesting people you wouldn’t otherwise meet. It’s always nice to get new followers (if any of you are reading this, thank you!) but I do sometimes puzzle over who’s following me and why. I tweet mainly about language …
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 …
Top 100 Language Blogs 2010: we’ve been nominated!
We’ve been nominated as one of the Top 100 Language Blogs 2010 competition organised by LexioPhiles. As you can imagine, we’re well chuffed! Nominations are open until 11 May (23:59 hours German time). Voting will then take place from 12-24 May 2010. If you’d like to nominate Words to good effect (and we hope you …
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…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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