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Why British people can’t pronounce sockeye salmon properly
Its name comes from an indigenous North American language that requires a trick of the throat
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Modern Toss’s Tossary: Hum-anity
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Modern Toss’s Tossary: Holy assist
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When the Guardian was offended by television
The curious history of language purists hating ‘mongrel’ words
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What Trump doesn’t get about the Falklands
The president has put the islands’ fate back on the table – without asking the islanders
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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
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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
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Modern Toss’s Tossary: Slophead
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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The beautiful linguistic chaos of modern Iran
Authoritarian governments have pushed Farsi’s dominance – but 59 other languages still thrive
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What Michael Jackson got wrong about apostrophes
Enough! Just stop using ‘til when it should be till
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Why are snowy bumps and VIPs both called moguls?
Ski-slope bump or influential person? Two similar-sounding but unrelated words have merged
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Fakelore and the spurious pastime of dwile flonking
How a genuinely old dialect word became part of a made-up East Anglian pub game
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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’
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When asylum meant safe from violence
How a Greek word for sanctuary became one of the most contested terms in modern English
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Don’t mistake a rook for a rookie
Despite its strong association with US sport and policing, the term ‘rookie’ has a complicated history
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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
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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
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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
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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?
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The lost voices of 15th-century Norfolk speak again
A set of documents provides a unique window into earlier forms of the English language
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The linguistic logic behind dropped syllables
What triggers haplology – why do speakers omit whole syllables?
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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
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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
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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
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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
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The joy of nominative determinism
Can an alignment of names and occupations ever have involved more than just simple coincidence?