Anyone living as I do near to Stratford-upon-Avon will be all too aware that April 23 marked 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare – the world’s most famous playwright. Unlike the Bard, I’m no playwright or poet. But I am a writer and a fellow lover of words. So, as my personal homage to the […]
I’ve been a bit remiss with my blogging lately, but I felt compelled to publish one today as Britain takes to the polls in the historic EU referendum. Don’t worry; this post is going to stay well away from politics. Instead,…
Unless you’ve had your head completely buried under the duvet in recent years, you can’t fail to have noticed that hygge is the mot du jour. Hygge (pronounced ‘hoo-gah’ or ‘hue-gah’) is an integral part of Danish culture, especially during the long, dark, cold winter months. It’s also spawned numerous other words, including the adjective hyggelig […]
After visiting an eye-popping Op Art exhibition on the weekend, I felt inspired to research idioms about colours, shapes and patterns. In fact, I’m surprised I haven’t covered them already as part of my series! It turns out there are so many that I’m going to split them into two posts – starting with colour idioms. […]
As the witching hour of Halloween approaches, it seems fitting to make spooky sayings and phrases the next topic in my series about idioms in the English language. I hadn’t realised quite how many spooky sayings we use in everyday…
If you stumble across a word with the prefix lex, there’s a pretty good chance that it will have something to do with words. But how many of the following words that start with lex did you already know? Words that…
Whether or not you’ve been following the Commonwealth Games, or are a fan of sports in general, there’s one facet of sporting culture that’s hard to avoid: sport idioms. Although they originate from the world of sport, these phrases and sayings infiltrate our everyday language. I enjoyed researching weather idioms for one of my earlier […]
Numerous Latin phrases and abbreviations have endured the test of time to still feature in English today, especially in the field of business and law. Yet many of them are incorrectly used, largely because people don’t always understand their specific purpose and meaning. So, to make sure you get top marks next time you drop one of […]
If you stumble across a word with the prefix lex, there’s a pretty good chance that it will have something to do with words. But how many of the following words that start with lex did you already know? Words that start with lex Lexeme = used in linguistics to describe a basic unit of a […]
Ever find yourself with a burning grammatical question whilst away from your desk? Or need to settle a linguistic debate, such as whether to hyphenate coordinate? If so, help is at hand courtesy of a new writers’ app from London-based writing and…
In most industry sectors, employees get sent on various training courses as part of their continuing professional development (CPD). Whether run internally or by external providers, these courses all share something in common. They’re designed to: Enhance your knowledge Help you learn new skills or update existing ones Bring you up to speed with the […]
Instead of setting myself the usual vague New Year’s resolutions I decided this year to sign up to a personal challenge: to walk 1000 miles during 2017. So it seems only right that my first blog post of the year should… Posted in Idioms Tagged with: sayings, walk, walking
I recently overheard a radio news presenter refer to “less people” at a particular event. The issue of whether to use less or fewer in a sentence is one that catches many people out. This is confirmed by Oxford Dictionaries,…
I’ve a confession: this is my first blog post in six weeks. And only my fifth this year. I know that doesn’t exactly sound like a heinous crime, even for a freelance copywriter. And I very much doubt if anyone has even noticed! However, when I decided to take the plunge and start my own […]