February 22, 2014
by Graham
17 Comments
The present upheavals in Ukraine bring the pronunciation of its place names into prominence. Even the country’s name is now subtly different from what it was thirty years ago. Then the geographical area was always called “The Ukraine”, which was … Continue reading
January 25, 2014
by Graham
5 Comments
This is what I call the place where I catch the train both to and from London. Increasingly, what I’ve always considered to be an Americanism – train station – is being used, even by friends of my own generation. … Continue reading
December 1, 2013
by Graham
0 comments
According to the OED’s examples, Lewis Carroll may have invented the use of ‘portmanteau’ to mean a word made up of the elements of two or more other words in order to somehow combine their meanings: in Through the Looking-glass, … Continue reading
November 11, 2013
by Graham
0 comments
The other day, I forget exactly when, I heard someone on BBC Radio 4 use a word I hadn’t come across before, and one to which my immediate reaction was “he’s making it up”. However, I should have remembered that … Continue reading
June 15, 2013
by Graham
7 Comments
When Marmaduke Hussey was Chairman of the BBC Governors in the 1990s, he received a letter from one of his cronies, who happened also to be a former governor of the BBC, asking why ‘we’ were pronouncing the word surveillance … Continue reading
May 7, 2013
by Graham
1 Comment
Once again, Saturday Live, BBC Radio 4’s morning programme, has displayed linguistic ignorance, whether by accident or design. Last week’s programme (4 May) interviewed the ‘caller’ (British English ‘commentator’) for the Kentucky Derby (surprisingly the current caller is British). Twice, … Continue reading
April 28, 2013
by Graham
6 Comments
I’ve been watching Lucy Worsley’s latest TV series on the monarchy – “Fit to Rule”. Dr Worsley is the Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, and this is not the first series she has presented. They all seem well researched, … Continue reading
January 21, 2013
by Graham
1 Comment
The tragic events in Algeria have once more brought the words Islamist and Jihadist (should they be capitalized or not?) into the news. Two things strike me – first, where is the stress on Islamist? The ‘rule’ in English is … Continue reading
November 24, 2012
by Graham
20 Comments
One of the problems with English spelling is the number of borrowings there have been from other languages. It is often said that English should follow the lead of languages like Spanish, that spell as they are pronounced. Leaving aside … Continue reading
October 26, 2012
by Graham
7 Comments
The BBC’s Arts guru Mark Lawson is setting himself up as an expert in Scandinavian crime writing. As such, you would think that he would care about the pronunciation of the names of the writers he’s interviewing and talking about, … Continue reading