English Language Facts and Fascinations

A lifelong love of English language quirks and oddities, errors and antics: semantic slippages, grammatical gruesomosities and morphological monstrosities... Things I notice in my editing, my English teaching, and in everyday life.

Saturday, 31 March 2018

A three-line whip

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A three-line whip . Listening to the Radio (BBC Radio 4) just now I’ve discovered what this phrase actually means / comes from: British Par...

Thursday, 1 March 2018

Snowmageddon

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‘Snowmageddon’ is what Inside Science ’s* presenter today called the very cold snap of freezing Siberian-wind-driven weather that we’re cur...

The Beast from the East

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The first day of March 2018, and ‘The Beast from the East’ is here! Severe weather warnings... amber warnings (‘be careful’) and red warni...

Wednesday, 14 February 2018

Floriography: what the heck is that?!

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I've just learnt a new word: floriography , the language of flowers, in other words it means communicating through the symbolism of flow...

Monday, 29 January 2018

Double-screening

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A new verb: I heard this for the first time a couple of weeks or so ago (January 2018) on BBC Radio 4. Are you familiar with it: ......

Monday, 15 January 2018

Othering

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Back in July 2016, so about 18 months ago, I wrote this about a 'new-to-me' use of the word 'other', as a verb: I was f...

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