Language Lovers

The lazy, hazy days of summer

During August – which in some luckier parts of Britain is finally producing seasonable weather – two ‘days’ encourage us to switch off, dial down and generally ease off on normal activities. National Lazy Day falls on 10 August, followed cold on… Read More

Paris 2024™

Between 26 July and 11 August sports fans the world over will be abuzz as France hosts what is officially the twenty-third Olympiad™ – in Paris, in sixteen other sites across France and on French Tahiti, where the windsurfing competition will take place. In French, the games are… Read More

Welcome to the ton: 7 new Bridgerton words

Dear reader, we are honoured to welcome you back to the ton! Last time we spoke, we gave you 9 words to sweep you into the world of Bridgerton, and now, with season 3 streaming on Netflix, we thought it was high time to return to everyone’s favourite Regency-era… Read More

International Day of Yoga and Sanskrit words

Get those yoga mats out! The twenty-first of June is, to say the least, a rather different ‘day’. It’s not just one of those (*sigh* or *yawn*) ‘Everything has a day these days’ days. It’s the International Day of Yoga as officially endorsed by the United Nations (UN). It… Read More

It’s a Taylor Swift blog, baby, just say yes

There’s a brand-new fever sweeping the UK and Europe. That’s right, Taylor Swift’s Eras tour has officially made its way across the pond, and we are all enchanted. Having visited Edinburgh, Liverpool and Cardiff, and with her sights now set on Dublin and London, Taylor has also been debuting performances… Read More

Environment Day 2024: a world of vocabulary

World Environment Day – 5 June – is a United Nations (UN)-designated day to raise awareness of the manifold environmental problems our world faces. Given the scope of the word ‘environment’, those problems include a broad swathe of often interconnected issues. This year the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, together with… Read More

Sting-Nettle Day

Don’t get nettled! Have you ever been stung by a stinging nettle? I bet you have. I’m sure I was as a youngster – more than once. And I’m equally sure I learned by the age of five or six how to identify and apply a… Read More

‘100 Words for Rain’ by Alex Johnson

Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day! British weather, eh! Who would have it? March this year, though rainy and dismal, was not in fact the rainiest March on record. That happened in 1947. But now that spring is springing upon us fast, it’s been a delight to delve,… Read More

9 weird and wonderful collective nouns

A pride of lions. A gaggle of geese. A murder of crows. The English language is full of peculiarities, but collective nouns are among the most remarkable. But what is a collective noun? Collective nouns are used to refer to a group of people or things, with some of the… Read More