Language Lovers

What is #love anyway?

Every year on the fourteenth of February the world celebrates the idea of love. If you look up ‘love’ in Collins English Dictionary, you will find the word defined as ‘an intense emotion of affection, warmth, fondness, and regard towards a person or thing’. But love also appears in… Read More

Are Brexiety and flextensions finally behind us?

As the clock struck 11pm on 31 January 2020, Brexit became a reality and Brexiteers (supporters or architects of the withdrawal of Britain from the European Union) held celebratory parties across the UK. Remainers gathered too, brandishing placards mourning Britain’s departure and reaffirming their belief that the country… Read More

What put the corona in the coronavirus?

If you had never heard of a coronavirus before this year, you certainly will have now. As alarm increases about the spread of a new strain of this virus around the world, some people have been wondering about the significance of the word ‘corona’ in the name,… Read More

How the Truth Got Cancelled

For many observers, the 2010s were the decade of fake news. In 2016, Donald Trump appeared to use the word ‘bigly’, which soon caught on as a humorously intensifying adverb, even though it turned out that Trump himself had actually said ‘big league’. And ‘bigly’ itself is attested as an… Read More

Learning ‘French for Kids with Paul Noble’ (#ad)

I’m not going to lie, I never really liked French. I always thought it was boring and useless and it would go in one ear and out the other. So, when my mum got me this course, I was very hesitant. I thought it would be like the many… Read More

OK Boomer, Fishetarian, and Baby Yoda: Words in the News

If there’s one thing that never changes, it’s inter-generational antagonism. The current incarnation of generational conflict is between the Millennials (also known as Generation Y), born between 1981 and 1996 (according to some reckonings), and the Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964. And by now pretty much everyone has… Read More

What does ‘quid pro quo’ mean?

Latin is a famously dead language, but it was busy enough while it was alive that echoes of it can still be heard in the modern world. One particular Latin phrase has been front and centre in the news recently as the impeachment enquiry into the activities of President Trump… Read More

Plant-based, Sarawak, and Big Five: October’s Words in the News

A couple of months ago, the Impossible Burger brought us a new meaning of the everyday word, impossible. But, of course, Impossible isn’t the only brand of meat substitute on the block. In fact, the increasing attention on this new development in food culture has made plant-based a household… Read More

From ‘Brexiety’ to ‘prorogation’: how Brexit has changed the way we use language in 2019

Britain’s exit from the European Union has dominated the news agenda since 2016, when Brexit was nominated by Collins Dictionaries as its Word of the Year. 2019 was supposed to be the year that Britain finally left the EU. At the time of writing, however, that still hasn’t happened, in… Read More