Linguistics

A game of word definitions created by a malevolent writer who has juggled with the subject matter all his life.

50 idioms and phrases that have their origins in all things nautical. Sea-faring has developed a unique language and terminology over the centuries and many of these snippets of language are now incorporated into everyday our vocabulary, often without us realising where they began.

The words affect and effect are often confused in the English language. Even native English speakers use the two words incorrectly . The difficulty lies that both sound similar and both can be used as nouns and verbs. Here I discuss the differences between affect and effect and how to use them.

A little-known dialect from the Midlands of England echoes the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons.

What is an idiom? What is their meaning? "Break a leg!" "He just kicked the bucket." Have you ever wondered what these phrases and others have meant or how they originated?

The English language abounds with expressions that have been in common usage for so long that everyone knows exactly what they mean. Known as idioms, many of these expressions have surprising origins.

Which language do Belgians speak? It might surprise some, but the mothertongue of the Belgian population is not English, nor do most Belgians speak French. But what do they speak then? In this article, I will explain what Belgians do speak and why the Belgian language question is not that easy.

Why do two small ethnic enclaves at opposite ends of Europe share some linguistic similarities?

Brief comparison between British and American English; then an overview of various native languages, dialects and accents in Britain to highlight the language diversity in UK compared to the USA.

Educators are seeing an increase in children arriving at school with poor vocabularies that are going to handicap them throughout life.

Interjections are words that have no grammatical meaning but are understood. Alliterations are sentences where every word starts with the same letter. See a demonstration of their usage.

The early 1900's were a time of displacement of over 500,000 people in the U.S. Many became Hobos and became a migrant society. As they traveled they developed a communication code using symbols.

Of the world’s approximately 6,000 languages, English is said to be one of the easier ones to learn despite its idiosyncrasies of spelling and pronunciation.

Sometimes words can mean multiple things depending on context. This can get confusing when those words have 2 opposite meanings! Here are 10 words that can mean the opposite of themselves.

It is amazing how the same phrase meant one thing long ago and means something else today. The phrase "ride or die" is one of those phrases. You might know what it means today, but do you know what it meant originally?

British and American English can be vastly different, much to the surprise and humor of everyone involved! Here are a few fun tidbits about how our neighbors speak across the pond.