Have you ever met someone whose surname was a perfect fit for the job they do? Or, indeed, an unfortunate pairing such as a goalkeeper called Dropsy*? I’ve been pondering writing about this subject for a while, inspired by Mr Macro –…

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… TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged. Today it […]

Seeing as a large number of schoolchildren in the UK are currently in the midst of external exams – whether that’s GCSEs, AS levels or A2s – a blog post covering idioms about exams seemed to be the obvious contender… Posted in Idioms Tagged with: exams, phrases, studying

Most people are familiar with common literary devices such as similes, metaphors and alliteration. Yet there are numerous other devices that are frequently used – both in literature and in everyday speech – without getting the recognition they deserve. What exactly are…

After much deliberation and soul-searching (well, procrastination followed by a much-needed nudge) I finally joined Twitter back in January 2015. Here’s what I’ve discovered during my first 6 months… It’s all in the open The most important thing to remember is that NOTHING on Twitter is private, except DMs. It’s worth bearing this in mind […]

Home › Archive for Tips › Page 2 Would you believe it, but it’s been 21 years since I decided back in October 1996 to set up my stall as a freelancer? After initially offering four services – copywriting, editing, proofreading and translation – I soon dropped the latter to… A recent query from a client reminded […]

Do you ever wonder what job or profession you might be doing now if your career had taken a different direction? Perhaps if you’d got better grades at school or had accepted job offer A versus job offer B? From… I’ve a confession: I loved the ’80s. The music, the fashion, the hair… Well, OK, […]

Home › Posts tagged sayings › Page 2 If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll be familiar with my idioms series. This features everyday phrases and sayings in the English language that have strange meanings – and often even stranger origins. Each post in the series focuses on… As the final of this year’s Eurovision […]

Home › Posts tagged etymology › Page 2 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… My recent adventure on the high seas […]

Home › Posts tagged blog › Page 2 As seems customary at this time of year, I’m taking the easy option this week and doing a blog review to see what worked and what didn’t. But instead of having to trawl through my blog’s stats for 2015, the kind people… As yet another year draws to a […]

Home › Archive for Language › Page 2 Losing the hammer. Blanking an end. Staying in the house. What on earth does it all mean? It can only be one thing… curling lingo. If, like me, you’ve been enjoying watching the British curling teams in action at the… Unless you’ve had your head completely buried […]

Home › Archive for Lists › Page 3 As a linguist, I’m always fascinated by how people in other countries use completely different words to effectively say the same thing. For this week’s blog post, I’ve therefore rounded up the many versions of Merry Christmas, Happy Christmas or… Whether you’re after stocking fillers for teenage […]

Home › Archive for Language › Page 3 As writers we’re often encouraged to keep things short and to the point. After all, “Brevity is the soul of wit”.[1] Many of the abbreviations we rely on in everyday English have Latin origins. In fact, the word abbreviation derives… One of the many differences between British […]

Home › Archive for Miscellaneous › Page 3 TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged. Today it covers a diverse range of topics in more than 100 languages. Not only are TED Talks videos entertaining, informative and thought provoking, but they’re also… Today is International Left-Handers Day, which was […]