Language
How Britain blundered in the first refugee crisis – 340 years ago
French Protestants came in search of religious freedom. Then the Glorious Revolution changed everything
Language
Language
Why did we call her the Queen – not Queen’s – Mother?
The answer to a question about an old English grandma lies in Old English grammar
Language
Modern Toss’s Tossary: Slophead
Language
Why I’m walking round with a lentil in my eye
A cataract operation left me with pseudophakia – the happy condition of having an artificial lens
Language
How names go extinct, then come back to life
In countries like Britain with no strong baby naming traditions, Lily, Ivy and Elsie can disappear for decades before returning to popularity
Language
Should you say CONtroversy or conTROversy? And does it matter?
Which syllables should be stressed is a cause of stress – so here’s a guide
Language
Did Tommy Cooper’s fez really come from Morocco?
The origin of the hat’s name comes from the location of berries used to dye its felt
Language
The strange history of the Herzogs, a dynasty without a crown
From Ashkenazi roots to German titles, the surname of Israel’s president carries centuries of meaning
Language
Why few dare speak the name of Mozart’s son
Franz Xaver Mozart is known as ‘FX’ – because English speakers are baffled by his middle name
Language
The beautiful linguistic chaos of modern Iran
Authoritarian governments have pushed Farsi’s dominance – but 59 other languages still thrive
Language
What Michael Jackson got wrong about apostrophes
Enough! Just stop using ‘til when it should be till
Language
Why are snowy bumps and VIPs both called moguls?
Ski-slope bump or influential person? Two similar-sounding but unrelated words have merged
Language
Fakelore and the spurious pastime of dwile flonking
How a genuinely old dialect word became part of a made-up East Anglian pub game
Language
What do the French call a ‘French exit’?
The art of slipping away from a party without saying goodbye is known across the Channel as ‘leaving in the English style’
Language
When asylum meant safe from violence
How a Greek word for sanctuary became one of the most contested terms in modern English
Language
Don’t mistake a rook for a rookie
Despite its strong association with US sport and policing, the term ‘rookie’ has a complicated history
Language
A language you didn’t know you spoke
Some familiar words we use in everyday English carry surprising traces of Malay, a language spoken widely across south-east Asia
Language
Seven degrees of separation: The curious origins of musical pitch
How biology, physics and geography came to define the structure and range of the human voice
Language
It’s a shame we’re so bad at Spanish
It is the second most-spoken first language in the world, and opens doors across continents and careers – yet British schools still insist on teaching French
Language
A multilingual hospital with the accent on care
How perfect can crucial communications be within a hospital with a plethora of languages, dialects and communicative styles?
Language
The lost voices of 15th-century Norfolk speak again
A set of documents provides a unique window into earlier forms of the English language
Language
The linguistic logic behind dropped syllables
What triggers haplology – why do speakers omit whole syllables?
Language
The hidden Swedish voices of the Baltic
Small communities across Finland, Estonia and even Ukraine keep the Swedish language alive in unexpected corners of Europe
Language
My relationship to my flesh and blood
An examination of other languages from around the world shows us that ownership can be signalled in rather more complicated ways
Language
Weybourne Hope, the guardian of England
The village is said to be the only place along the English east coast where an enemy navy could approach within a few hundred yards
Language
The myth of England’s monocultural past
The idea England ever spoke no languages other than English is a fantasy with no foundation in reality
Language
The joy of nominative determinism
Can an alignment of names and occupations ever have involved more than just simple coincidence?
Language
The many roles of hard-working morphemes
Morphemes are the building blocks essential for the composition of words
Language
The linguist they can’t shut up
Shootings and snakes won’t
stop Nicholas Evans’s award-winning work documenting the world’s smaller languages
Language
A French connection in the American midwest
How 17th-century French pronunciation was taken across the Atlantic Ocean from northern and western France to North America
Language
The wright way to signify your trade
Where does the common name Wright come from? The answer has its roots in work
Language
When learning languages becomes a stress test
Our English orthography gives no assistance at all to help readers tell where the emphasis should be placed