How many hours of my life have I spent – first as a language student and then as a professional linguist – tediously flipping through dictionaries and grammar books looking up arcane accents and idiosyncratic spellings in French? It’s a rhetorical question, obviously. However, if I were able to put a precise figure on my …
How would you feel if someone asked you to refer to them not as “he” or “she”, but instead as “ze” or “ey”? Or if they asked you not to speak about them using any third-person pronouns at all, but just their name? As this recent article contends, it’s probably something we’ll all be asked …
Is there a word for the embarrassed disappointment you feel when, to prove a fascinating fact you’ve proudly announced at a social gathering, you google it on the Internet only to find out it’s an urban legend? If so, I could certainly have used that word over Christmas. You see, I’ve been quoting the word …
I spotted the following link, and its related headline, recently on the Grauniad’s website… and for once, it wasn’t the spelling that made me laugh. Prompting the obvious question… how exactly do you shoot someone with a knife? As a headline, it’s right up there with “Passengers hit by cancelled trains”, “Post Office supervisor charged …
The opening verses of the Ordinalia, one of the most famous works of Cornish literature. Myttin da! Regular visitors may recall our recent delight at the Lazarus-like rise of the Cornish language from the mortuary slab as its official status was changed by the UN from “extinct” to merely “critically endangered”. I’m glad to report …
