October 30, 2010
by Graham
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I’ve written before about the pronunciation of nuptial and haven’t got much to add, except that a couple of weeks ago, the word was much in the news when the British courts were asked to decide on the legality of … Continue reading
October 24, 2010
by Graham
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Sportsmen – and I suppose sportswomen as well – are often given nicknames by their team mates. For instance, Andrew Flintoff became “Freddy” because of the similarity of his surname to “Flintstone”. The most unimaginative of these is simply to … Continue reading
October 18, 2010
by Graham
4 Comments
In last week’s In Our Time, (Radio 4, Thursday 14 October) one of Melvyn Bragg’s guests was Tim Blanning, Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at Cambridge University The discussion was about the Sturm und Drang movement in 18th Century … Continue reading
October 4, 2010
by Graham
3 Comments
I’ve been reading “The World of Words” by Eric Partridge (published by Routledge, 1938). In Chapter 2, entitled “The English Language” – chapter 3 is “The American Language” – he draws largely on Otto Jespersen’s Growth and Structure of the … Continue reading
September 28, 2010
by Graham
1 Comment
Dr Jonathan Foyle, presenting a BBC 4 TV programme on the public buildings of the north of England, repeatedly pronounced the Athenaeum in Liverpool as /æθəˈneɪəm/, although his interviewees, members of the club, used the more anglicized /æθəˈniːəm/. I attributed … Continue reading
September 18, 2010
by Graham
15 Comments
Catching up on some TV programmes recorded while I’ve been away, I’ve inevitably found some usages to comment on. First a common confusion of two words, but this time in the less usual way: prostate and prostrate. It’s quite common … Continue reading
July 28, 2010
by Graham
1 Comment
Over the last couple of weeks, the name of the tragic child James Bulger has come back into the news after nearly twenty years, because one of his killers, Jon Venables, has been found guilty of child pornography crimes. As … Continue reading
July 26, 2010
by Graham
1 Comment
Now that my far-from-expert piano playing is no longer needed for a few weeks, I’ve been catching up on reading the various phonetic blogs I usually follow, and have found my name mentioned a couple of times. In particular by … Continue reading
July 14, 2010
by Graham
0 comments
Apologies for my long silence – my musical life has taken over recently (three concerts down, and another on Saturday). As I’m not a natural performer, I’ve had to do lots of practice, something I’m not used to! The Queen’s … Continue reading
June 9, 2010
by Graham
14 Comments
I’ve been having run-ins with the Queen’s English Society since the early 1980s. Now they have raised their head again with the setting up of an English Academy, which the Society will run, and which is intended to be on … Continue reading