Language Lovers

Bonfire or Guy Fawkes Night

8th Nov 2021

Remember, remember, the fifth of November Gunpowder, treason and plot. We see no reason Why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot. On the night of 4 November 1605 Guy Fawkes, a Catholic, was discovered in an undercroft of the House of Lords guarding a hoard of gunpowder intended to explode the following day at the state opening of Parliament Read More

COP26

1st Nov 2021

November brings a momentous gathering to Glasgow, Scotland, namely COP26. It’s the twenty-sixth and latest in a series of UN-led annual conferences to agree measures to combat climate change. Why the name ‘COP’? The initials stand for ‘Conference of the Parties’. The parties are the 197 countries now signed up… Read More

Trick or treat? The eerie etymology behind popular Halloween words

27th Oct 2021

Spooky season has arrived once more! Pumpkins are out in full force and this year, we decided to revisit some of our gruesome lexical offerings with a brand-new look into some of the most popular words and phrases associated with the scariest time of year. You can read our… Read More

Words matter: thoughts on language and Black History Month

13th Oct 2021

The work of historians is increasingly emphasising something that many in the Black community have known for a long time: the profound influence of Africa and the Caribbean on British culture. Last month, I began a PhD and my research is focused on mahogany in English country houses. Chippendale cabinets… Read More

Blah-blah-blah… 6 unusual words when you’re lost for words

6th Oct 2021

The climate emergency continues to be an urgent challenge for the planet, with a whole wave of new words entering the dictionary to describe its impact and influence, from single-use and plogging to climate strike. Last week, Greta… Read More

Celebrate National Poetry Day

29th Sep 2021

This year’s annual National Poetry Day, the thirty-eighth, falls on Thursday 7 October. National Poetry Day (NPD) was founded in 1994 by an arts charity – the Forward Arts Foundation – and has gone from strength to strength, boosting, inter alia, sales of poetry: the graph… Read More

Is the autumn equinox the start of a new season?

22nd Sep 2021

There are just a handful of astronomical events that non-specialists like me know of, and one of them will be upon us very soon: the autumn equinox. On 22 September 2021, day and night will be equal in length across the whole world. How so?… Read More

Brush up on your Latin this Back to School

23rd Aug 2021

The UK Education Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson, has recently decreed that as part of the government’s strategy to level up, funds will be devoted to a pilot study into… Read More

New Conversations Day

9th Jul 2021

Conversation had a very precise meaning for Dr Johnson, he of dictionary fame and a conversationalist par excellence. When his biographer, Boswell, asked him whether there had been good conversation at a dinner party, he declared: ‘No, Sir; we had talk enough,… Read More