A new study has mapped the global influence of different languages and as a surprise to absolutely no one, English comes out as the most important and influential language. Russia, somewhat more surprisingly, comes in second with other languages following up well behind. The data was collected by researchers at […]
Oh language! Do we want to go down the route of there being no rules, just a few nebulous suggestions which change over time? Are we like the freethinking parents at sports day who declare that every child wins because they are all special? Or are we on the side […]
I was asked this question the other day by a learner of English; quite simply, do we MAKE or DO a presentation? If you go online there are different stories, but as usual I went along to Google n-grams and checked out what they had to say. It’s interesting. Prior […]
A professor of comparative English at Columbia university said that commas should be abolished. He said we should get rid of them and no one would care. He says we should kill them. Destroy them. Take each one and murder it in cold blood. And the reaction? Pages of internet […]
Earlier in the year we reported on how Cambridge city council in the UK had decided not to use apostrophes in street signs and how examiners for Cambridge Assessment (the ones who do all the TEFL exams) had supported this idea. It was, of course, ridiculous of them to do […]