In today’s digital world, where attention spans are shorter than ever, the words you choose can determine whether your message resonates or gets ignored. Whether you’re crafting marketing content, writing a blog, or building a brand voice, precision in language is essential. Even platforms like basswin rely on carefully selected wording to engage users and […]

Since writing my previous blog post containing 20 titbits of word trivia I’ve beenon the hunt for more weird and wonderful word facts to share with you. All of these facts are about words in the English language, so I’ve deliberately not repeated that each time. Here goes… 1. Alphabet comes from the first two letters of the Greek […]

As you may know, I’m rather partial to words. I enjoy reading them, writing them, playing with them, learning about their origin and discovering new ones. So, seeing as I’ve already written a blog post with my favourite quotes about writing, it seems only right to also do one on quotations about words – both of […]

Like many others, I was recently glued to my TV wondering who was going to be crowned MasterChef 2015. As well as making me feel hungry, watching the contestants create culinary masterpieces got me thinking about common idioms and other phrases in English that are linked to cooking. There are actually a lot more than […]

A recent online chat with a graphic designer in Bristol (near my home town of Bath) reminded me of the different names we use for everyday objects. In this case it was footwear. Or, to be precise, canvas shoes. A dap by any other name He’d posted a photo of some rather snazzy canvas lace-ups, which […]

You know that idiom that refers to comparing yourself to your neighbours as a benchmark for social class or material wealth? Whereby failure to ‘keep up’ with their practices or possessions is perceived as evidence of socio-economic or cultural inferiority. How do you think it should be written? Not like this (spotted in a recent blog […]

As a standalone word, a graph is a diagram showing the relation between variable quantities – usually measured along a pair of axes at right angles. In Linguistics, it refers to a visual symbol representing a unit of sound or other feature of speech. But it also appears in a combined form as a root of many […]

Following on from my previous post on names for plimsolls, attention now turns to what we Brits call the humble bread roll. As I suspected, there’s a far greater variety of names for bread rolls than there is for elasticated footwear. But I wasn’t prepared for quite how many… Origin of the bread roll A roll is a small […]

As any non-native speakers learning English as a second language soon discover, English is a funny language! Not only has its vocabulary derived from several European language families, but there are also numerous paradoxes and inconsistencies that are a real test of anyone’s linguistic ability. So, without further ado, here are a number of everyday words and […]

What are your pet grammar peeves? Which grammar mistakes set your teeth on edge? Is it the misuse of apostrophes for plurals? Perhaps the incorrect your/you’re or their/there/they’re? Maybe it’s dangling modifiers or stray semicolons that getyour goat. Top of my list has to be when people mix up it’s with its. NB: This is only an issue in written English as when spoken they both sound the […]

As yet another fabulous series of Strictly Comes Dancing nears its conclusion (I’m a bit of a fan, in case you were wondering) it seems apt to focus on dancing idioms for the next post in my series. So, without further ado, put on your dancing shoes and let’s get on with the show… Hitting the dance […]

If you’re a grammar pedant like me, signs like this – or ones advertising CD’s For Sale – will most likely make your toes curl and set your teeth on edge. Yet the majority of people have become so used to seeing plural acronyms written like this that they assume it’s ‘correct’ English. How to make acronyms plural […]

Most people will be familiar with the terms gaggle of geese, litter of puppies, pride of lions and school of dolphins. Yet there are many other collective nouns for animals – known as “terms of venery” – that are less well known but equally worthy. Origins of collective nouns As with most words in the English language, collective nouns […]

My recent adventure on the high seas (well, the North Sea to be precise) got me thinking about the numerous nautical idioms that permeate the English language. As an island nation, Britain has a rich maritime heritage. Our reliance on the sea for trading purposes resulted in a wealth of mariners’ lingo – much of […]

After visiting two delightful gardens last weekend – one belonging to the National Trust and a private one open under the National Gardens Scheme – I was inspired to research gardening idioms for this week’s post. As with most idiomatic phrases in English, few gardening idioms have anything to do with things that grow in the garden […]

As a self-confessed word nerd I’m somewhat partial to discovering and collecting word trivia – I only wish that pub quizzes had a compulsory round on the subject (I might actually have a chance of answering some questions then!). Anyway, I thought I’d pull together a few of my favourite titbits of word trivia to share with […]

On the eve of Wimbledon – my favourite sporting event of the year – it seems fitting to write a blog about tennis. Like any sport, tennis has its own lingo but rather than focus on the common terminology, I thought I’d dig around a bit to find some of the lesser-known terms associated with the […]