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ARTICLES SECTION INDEX
This is a collection of longer pieces, not much added to these days, on some development or aspect of the language that has taken my fancy.
A rose by any other name: Losing something in translation? A test question gets grammarians arguing: On pronouns and possessive antecedents. A Word for All: The odd history of omnibus A Zillion Troubles: That's about the size of it Action at a distance: The evolving tele- prefix Activate the balls!: The vocabulary of British lotteries Alas Poor Nell: A name traduced Aluminium versus aluminum: Why two spellings? ASYE: Acronyms Selected for Your Enjoyment Balderdash and flummery: A few words from Welsh Beam me up, Scotty!: The linguistic legacy of Star Trek Between the Lines: Some railway words Bissextile, Intercalary, Embolistic: Some leap year words Chosen words: The language of elections Cider Insight: The jargon of an ancient craft Citing Online Sources: Advice on online citations formats Colour Me Environmental: Words for hues in the eco world. Cyberplague: Help! A prefix out of control! Decadal Dismay: What shall we call the forthcoming decade? Drink it, it’ll do you good: Possets, caudles and cordials Easy pickings: Don't play fast and loose with me Eating crow: And other indigestibles Ee: An ambiguous suffix explored Elementary, my dear IUPAC: Naming the rarest of atoms Engine and Motor: Two closely-related words investigated English is difficult: Even saying it in verse makes it no better. Fears and dreads: Words for irrational feelings Fibres from the Earth: Names for some natural materials Former wines are passed away: Some almost forgotten liquors Fudge: A favourite sweet confection has an obscure history. Gender-neutral pronouns: Can one avoid sexist writing? Ghoulies and Ghosties: Things that go bump in the night Gordon Bennett: A puzzling British exclamation. Gutta-percha, Ketchup, Sago: Words from Malay How bona to vada your eek!: A gay way of speaking How Many Words?: How many in the language and how manydoes any one person know? How to Promote your Dictionary: Publication of the 30th anniversary edition of Collins English Dictionary was accompanied by much press coverage. How words enter the language: Is there a formal process? I before E except after C: Is a traditional spelling rule worth learning? I Spy Gry!: Riddle Me No Riddles Impactful Ignorals: New terms that blush unseen. Inkhorn terms: Invented words that didn't make it Is This a Word?: The language stork keeps lexicographers busy Love these crazy titles!: The Bookseller/Diagram contest 2008. Meeting room jargon: Just fuel for buzzword bingo? Mind the greens!: Creative mishearings of lyrics Mind Your Ps and Qs: A puzzling and quirky idiom Misplaced Modifiers: Sloppy writing that evokes odd images. Money matters: How much is that, then? My fellow Merkins: An Internet bad joke New Words in the News: Can you really link a word to a year? Newspapergate: Knee-jerk journo neologisms No trees in the forest?: Chasing a changing sense Notta Lotta Nottle: A tour of packaging technology leads to some odd words. Only joking?: Should the smiley be outlawed? People Versus Persons: When should we use which? Plain English Campaign Awards 2002: Textual confusion. Plain English Campaign Awards 2003: One man's gobbledegook is another's plain speaking. Possessive Apostrophes: The greengrocer’s speciality Precision of Lexicographers: On the history of collective nouns. Pro bono publico: English legal language is changing Programming, Hungarian style: Gobbledegook in C Putting the kibosh on it: An unEnglish expression? Robodroid: An unhuman confusion Rules, Britannia: When it's OK to use GB or UK Sapristi Nadgers!: Where did that word come from? Shades of Meaning: Colour, hue, tint and shade Signs for Sums: Where our arithmetic symbols come from Talking Turkey: Names for a much-travelled bird The Colour of Words: The fugitive names of hues The Full Monty: Where that film title came from The Great Element Chase: Naming the unrare earths The Lure of the Red Herring: A idiom now tracked to its source. The mighty burger: A tasty and prolific word ending The Miller’s Tale: Beware of plausible etymologies The Whole Nine Yards: But nine yards of what? Through the Blender: New words, portmanteau style Town of Trades: Ross-on-Wye 150 years ago Travellers to Antique Lands: Tourism's lexical legacy Unpaired words: Accentuating the negative Ways of eating: Musings on combination cutlery Where it’s at: Names for a common symbol Which versus that: When to use each in subordinate clauses. Words of 1997: Some new words from the Oxford Archives Words of 1998: Some lists of new words discussed Words of 2001: Two lists of new words are discussed Words of 2002: Two lists of new words are discussed Words of 2003: Winning new words and phrases Words of the Year 2007: Winning words and phrases
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