Where do the calendar months get their names?

Contronyms - words that are their own opposites

Why is English Spelling So Weird?

How British and American Spelling Parted Ways

These days, when we want to know how to spell a word, we have an accepted authority to look to: the dictionary. But that wasn’t always the case. Here's how Brits and Americans came to look to two different authorities. Produced for Mental Floss.

The Use of: Very - Too - Enough

Image credits: www.grammar.cl

Idioms related to money

Image credits: American English at State on FB

Lexical Distance among Languages in Europe

This diagram shows the lexical distance among the languages spoken in Europe. As I speak languages of Romance and Germanic root, I find Greek, right there in the middle, particularly tempting... What about you?

Diagram credits: Lingholic

The World Map for THANK YOU

I really don't know if I agree with the "cheers" as thank you for British English... But let's assume the other suggestions are accurate. The Portuguese "OBRIGADO/OBRIGADA" should also be shown for Portugal! Do leave your remarks for your language as well! Obrigada. :)

Map credits: Lingholic

The European (and around) Map for TEA

Map credits: Lingholic

What makes a word "real"?

A tour of the British Isles in accents

A special thanks to Manuela Pais Pereira for the suggestion.

Which words originated in your birth year?

Do you know which words entered the English language around the same time you entered the world? Use the Oxford English Dictionary birthday word generator to find out! The Oxford English Dictionary did an amazing work finding words with a first known usage for each year from 1900 to 2004. Simply select the relevant decade and click on your birth year to discover a word which entered the English language that year.

Do you salad or sandwich? The verbing of English

photo credits: Oxford University Press

In this article, Jon Hird, author of the brand new Oxford Learner’s Pocket Verbs and Tenses, takes a look at the verbing of English and shares with us some interesting examples he has recently come across.

A recent OUP ELT blog about the language legacy of the Olympics (which we'll look at tomorrow) included some examples of nouns being used as verbs. Competitors no longer stood on the podium and won a medal, but podiumed and medalled. Athletes also finalled (reached a final) and PB-ed (achieved a PB, or Personal Best). Even Lord Coe, Chairman of the Organising Committee, got in on the act when, prior to the games, he told the nation that ‘The London Olympics need[ed] to legacy’.

This conversion of nouns to verbs is known as ‘verbing’ and it has been around for as long as the English language itself. Ancient verbs such as rain and thunder and more recent conversions such as access, chair, debut, highlight and impact were all originally used only as nouns before they became verbs. In his book, The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker tells us that ‘Easy conversion of nouns to verbs has been part of English grammar for centuries; it is one of the processes that makes English English.’

Verbing exists essentially to make what we say shorter and snappier. It can also give a more dynamic sense to ideas. Conversion is easy and therefore common in English because, unlike in many other languages, the base form of the verb does not take a separate ending. Verbs converted from nouns are all regular and the past forms have an -ed ending.

Today, noun to verb conversion is particularly common in the field of technology, especially when it comes to the internet and digital communication. Many words which were originally nouns have very quickly become established as verbs. We bookmark websites. We email, text, message and DM (Direct Message) people. We friend and unfriend (or defriend) people on Facebook. We tweet about topics that are trending. We blog. And now, at least according to one mobile phone provider, we also hub.

Proper nouns are also used as verbs. If we don’t know something, we google it. We skype to keep in touch. We youtube to watch video clips. And we facebook and whatsapp people about what’s going on. A Turkish colleague of mine recently found himself saying that he’d ebayed something and was wondering if it’s OK to say that.

Outside the world of technology, it seems that nouns are being verbed wherever you turn. At the airport on a recent work trip, we were informed that ‘Passengers who are transiting need to follow the transit signs.’ After my return to the UK, a colleague emailed ‘I hope you had a great time conferencing around Italy.’ Around the same time a friend facebooked ‘let’s coffee soon!’ I’ve since discovered that ‘Let’s Coffee’ is the name of numerous coffee shops around the world. There’s also ‘Let’s Burger’, ‘Let’s Seafood’ and no doubt many more.

Food and drink, in fact, seems to be ripe when it comes to verbing the noun. Ted, a character in the TV show ‘How I Met Your Mother’, when offering to buy someone a drink, asks ‘Can I beer you?’ After a talk I recently gave, one of the participants facebooked me this photo he had taken of a London café window (see below). Whether he saladed or sandwiched that day, I’m not sure. And while a considerable number of English words connected with food come from French, I was surprised to come across the concept of fooding in, of all places, Montmartre in Paris.

So, the choice is yours – do you noun or do you verb? Keep your eyes and ears open and see how many examples of verbing you come across. A lot, I suspect. 

By OUP, English Language Teaching Global Blog (slightly abridged)

2012 New Words

image credits: Keep Calm O'Matic App

Every year, Oxford Dictionaries are updated with some of the following: new words and senses, special features on language change, revised encyclopedic entries and improved functionality. Here are the main additions in 2012 and the corresponding month!

November

November’s update sees words from the worlds of technology, social culture, and finance debuting on Oxford Dictionaries Online.

Social terms recognized include bezzie, boyf, deets, First World problem, and stressy whilst technology brings us chatbot, forumite, Godwin’s law, and the recently launched LTE and 4G mobile networks. The continuing impact of the financial world can be seen in the addition of debt trap, payday loan, and payday lender.

August

The August quarterly update includes the addition of a number of terms inspired by contemporary culture, including ridic, group hug, vote (someone or something) off the island, and date night.

The world of technology also remains a major influence on the English language, with innovative advances reflected in new entries including ethical hacker, 3D printing, and e-learning. Social media also continues to shape language evolution: tweeps, video chat,lifecasting, and hat tip are among the latest words to make their Oxford Dictionaries debut, while acronyms regularly used online (from lulz to DW and UX) have also been recognized.

Superfly (stylish), boo (boyfriend), and skookum house (prison) are just some of the 1,000 new synonyms added to Oxford Dictionaries Pro in the August 2012 update, with the addition of the third edition of the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus. 

Here, you can read David Foster Wallace's reflection on the term 'all of' in the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus.

July

French, German, Italian, and Spanish vocabulary was added – from the everyday to the language of computing and technology, health and lifestyle. Look up access and digital in English, mieux and bibliothèque in French, die Servolenkung and der Doppelklick in German, bisettimanale and ambiente in Italian, or caminar and reciclado in Spanish.

May

A wide variety of words has been added, from aptonym to whatevs. Whether you are a sports fan who hopes to one day win the scudetto, or a fashionista debating whether to buy a onesie or a bandage dress,  you'll find something to interest you.

Words from the world of finance and banking (Robin Hood tax, debt ceiling, sovereign debt), computing (ransomware, geodata), and the environment (green technology, eco-driving, water footprint) have been added, too.

February

Calling all fashionistas – new words added to Oxford Dictionaries Online include boy shorts, shootie, and hobo bag. Gaming also plays a big role in the latest update, with gamification, ludology, and social gaming all featuring. Or perhaps you prefer to step away from the computer screen and indulge in some LARPing?

Learn more about the new words, from cyberchondriac to scratchiti, on the OxfordWords blog.

In Oxford Dictionaries (slightly abridged)

Some American 'sounds'