english

The Importance of Grammar

There's timely piece in this week's Guardian about the best way to teach modern languages in UK schools. To quote from one of the article's interviewees, "In a lot of European countries...

READ MORE | 16 May 2013
Euphemistically speaking

Fun piece in the Economist's Johnson column on the British love of euphemism and the wide gap between what we say in certain situations and what we mean. As one commenter perceptively points out, euph...

READ MORE | 16 Dec 2011
British invasion?

Nice piece on Language Johnson, an Economist blog dedicated to language use, on the recent influx of 'Britishisms' into American English. Apparently, 'kerfuffle', 'snog', 'nick' and 'c...

READ MORE | 15 Nov 2011
Do most languages need more space than English?

Fascinating Q & A post on the English Language and Usage web site that explodes some common misconceptions about the space efficiency of English on the page in relation to other popular languages....

READ MORE | 14 Oct 2010