Monthly Archives: December 2007

Starting in the early 1990s, I was increasingly asked at the BBC how we should be pronouncing the names of the years following 1999. Until then, there was only one way of naming the years: by grouping the numbers in … Continue reading →

In John Wells‘s blog today, he talks about the interjection (or should that be exclamation?) most usually associated nowadays with Homer Simpson – variously spelt doh, d’oh or duh. He quotes from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, and says … Continue reading →

What is the plural of diocese? Easy, you might think – it’s dioceses. Ah yes, but how do you pronounce it? Until 1999, and the tenth edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, no help was given by most ‘ordinary’ dictionaries. … Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, just after we changed the clocks to GMT, Fi Glover, presenting ‘Saturday Live’ on Radio 4, referred to the ‘moniker’ “Spring forward, fall back”. What she meant was mnemonic (pronounced ‘neeMONNik’). None of the possible scenarios … Continue reading →