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

Giving encouragement

To encourage someone to go somewhere more quickly or to do something more quickly, use Hurry up! or, more informally, Get a move on! Hurry up! We’ve got to be there in ten minutes! Hurry up, Mario! When you’ve finished your work, you can go out to play. Get a… Read More

Traversing the language of fantasy

With fantasy dominating the bestseller lists, it’s easy to imagine that major bestsellers such as Sarah J. Maas, Rebecca Yarros, and George R.R. Martin are a 21st-century phenomenon. In reality, fantasy writing has been capturing imaginations since long before the romantasy takeover. Human history is steeped… Read More

French word of the week: par

This series of weekly blogs takes a closer look at words from our French dictionaries. The word we're focusing on this week is the French preposition 'par'. Read More

Describing people and things

To give a general descriptions of something, use It’s … It’s gold with three diamonds. It’s a ladies’ watch. It’s a green suitcase with wheels. Use It’s made of … to say what material or substance something is. It’s made of leather. It’s quite a small bag, and it’s made… Read More

National puppy day

National Puppy Day falls on 23 March, as it has ever since its inaugural year of 2006, but this year it falls on a Saturday. Which means that dog owners will probably be lucky enough to have more time than ever to pamper their perfect pooch. Read More

False friends: 7 deceptive English words

As a great actor once said, ‘You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.’ It’s universally acknowledged that English is a tricky language to master – even for native English speakers – thanks to its vast number of rules, illogical language patterns,… Read More