Lucy Mangan is going on a ‘microadventure’. No ‘wackaging’ involved

16th Apr 2014

We get the technology we deserve. In the pipeline (or it may be already here – my toddler is ill, I haven’t been outside for a week and I don’t know anyone over three or under 30 who can keep me up to date, so who knows what’s happening?) is… Read More

Some of the best words that never were

3rd Apr 2014

A user of this website recently left a comment asking why we had chosen to mark as ‘rejected’ a word that another user had submitted. After all, the word had been invented and used by that person, so surely it should be included in the dictionary. This… Read More

Super-G, Beer and Bingo – Trending Words in March 2014

2nd Apr 2014

March may be the first month of Spring, but there was no indication in the weather, or in the news cycle, at the beginning of the month. We started well enough with the Paralympic Games in Sochi, Russia, during which Kelly Gallagher of Northern Ireland and her… Read More

Lucy Mangan learns some new words from the Greek Orthodox Church, as well as a new type of pasta

2nd Apr 2014

So, it looks like there may be an English word for schadenfreude after all. According to WritersCramp, it’s ‘epicaricacy‘ and covers the same convulsion of joy in another’s misfortune that the Teutonic loan does. What we lose in “Tuh – trust the Germans to… Read More

Lucy Mangan considers ‘komorebi’, ‘sitzfleisch’, and the proper pronunciation of ‘dog’…

18th Mar 2014

Thank you so much, Colin T. McDonough, for submitting ‘komorebi‘. It’s a Japanese word that means “sunlight that filters through the trees – the interplay between light and leaves”. It’s mentioned in many places as being one of those ‘untranslatable’ words – which is… Read More

Life as a polyglot

10th Mar 2014

Being a polyglot often stems from the chances that are afforded to us, but is also about taking those chances. On the day that Fluent in 3 Months by polyglot Benny Lewis is published, we’ve asked a polyglot, Livia, to guide us through her language experiences. What… Read More

Lucy Mangan takes on the new CollinsDictionary.com word submissions

3rd Mar 2014

Sometimes I regret forsaking the life of regular income, pension contributions, paid leave, office banter, sexual intrigue and people bringing cakes in that I used to have when I worked for a city solicitors, for the solitary, impecunious, banterless, cakeless life of a freelance writer (as for the intrigue, forget… Read More

International Mother Language Day: What does it mean to have a mother language?

21st Feb 2014

Today is UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day. To celebrate the power of language, we’ve asked three non-native English speakers to write about their experiences of having a mother language. Valerie, native French speaker ‘Ome Sweet ‘Ome “Where are you going on holiday?”“‘ome”… Read More

We’re off for a bit of wreckreation, followed by a bunny chow. Welcome to Lucy Mangan’s latest CollinsDictionary.com article!

18th Feb 2014

In the Venn diagram of life there is for some reason I leave it to sociologists, psychologists and other people better qualified than I to fathom, a substantial overlap between eco-sensibility and word nerdery. I mean, I recycle everything, haven’t turned the heating on yet, and look at the sentence… Read More