Language Lovers

Cracking the police code: 11 Line of Duty acronyms explained

25th Mar 2021

BBC’s Line of Duty is back after a two-year hiatus and we couldn’t be more excited to resume our role of armchair detective. But for civilians, deciphering all the police jargon can be pretty difficult. When you’re busy nicking bent coppers, you don’t have time to waste on trivial things… Read More

Lockdownversary

23rd Mar 2021

The twenty-third of March marks the anniversary of the first UK lockdown, that fateful Monday evening when the PM announced drastic measures to halt the spread of COVID-19. On social media there is talk of a lockdownversary, a portmanteau word which shows how elastic English is. Read More

World Book Day: read up on the language of books

4th Mar 2021

Thursday marks UK World Book Day. Fifteen million UK primary and secondary pupils will receive a £1 voucher to cash in for a book priced by publishers at a nominal £1. The aim is to encourage reading for pleasure. Reading for pleasure is, paradoxically, not pure and simple pleasure. Read More

9 words to decode Reddit’s GameStop trading lingo

19th Feb 2021

The events surrounding trading in the shares of the American company GameStop have provided us with one of the more intriguing news stories of recent times. The story of a bunch of small investors threatening to bring some of the giants of the financial world to their knees by taking… Read More

9 words to sweep you into the world of Bridgerton

10th Feb 2021

2021 is set to be the renaissance of Regency romance, as Netflix viewers indulge themselves in the delicious escapism of Bridgerton, a period romance with a modern twist. The salacious gossip of the anonymous Lady Whistledown, who has stepped gracefully into the role of a Georgian Gossip Girl, has kept… Read More

TikTok’s Sea Shanties: Explore their vocabulary

27th Jan 2021

Well, blow me down. Improbable as it may seem, there’s no denying that sea shanties are having a very real moment in the spotlight. Near the end of 2020, a video from a young Scottish singer started to do the rounds on the social media platform… Read More

Ten US political terms to baffle Brits

19th Jan 2021

(Updated from 7 US political terms to baffle the Brits, published on 7th November 2020) The United States will inaugurate a new president on January 20th when Joe Biden will be sworn in as the forty-sixth person to hold the office. While observers in Europe… Read More

Word exploration: vaccines, vaccinations and jabs

15th Jan 2021

In what the PM has described as a ‘final sprint’, the new year got off to a flying start with a COVID-19 vaccination rollout underway across the UK. In early January, Her Majesty The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh were vaccinated. The Palace decided… Read More

New hope for the New Year

28th Dec 2020

New Year’s Eve is traditionally when we fix our gaze firmly forward in hope, having cast a backward glance at the year just ended. Which, despite the negatives, saw a healthy increase in good-neighbourliness and kindness as demonstrated, for instance, by caremongering. I feel hopeful that… Read More