Enough already!!! Punctuation, silly women and soundbite science debuk.wordpress.com/2025/11/06/e...

Woo-hoo, I got pull-quoted in the TLS newsletter re @michaelerard.bsky.social’s book. link.the-tls.co.uk/view/6357e23...

I am hearing that @uniofnottingham.bsky.social is suspending (i.e shutting down) *all modern language courses* in 2026-27. One of the largest departments in the UK. A shocking short sighted move that damages regional and national prospects @britishacademy.bsky.social @hetanshah.bsky.social

Perfectly Common BrE Words the @NYTimesGames Spelling Bee Has Denied Me: An Occasional Series DEFFO Now added to the blog list: separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2023/04/nyt-...

Nominees for Japan's #WotY2025 www.nippon.com/en/japan-top...

There's a headline that makes a lot of assumptions about who's reading it. Do they not understand the internet? www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/ar...

A 'joke wot doesn't work' entry from my Facebook memories...G was 4 then.

Portuguese #WotY2025 shortlist is being put to a vote: www.aman-alliance.org/Home/Content...

Reader, mine wouldn’t have

My quotes from yesterday's Times stories are being recycled a lot. The stories often make the same frustrating error as in this headline: the survey did not show which "AmEisms" UK kids use most. It showed which ones UK teachers mentioned most. www.cbsnews.com/news/america...

Oh wow, you can sign in to the Oxford English Dictionary website with your library card number! Yes I found this out while checking to see if all the Call My Bluff words are made up and the show is a big prank #callmybluff

Is there a crossword person in your life? Would you like to get them a unique gift? PERHAPS FOR CHRISTMAS? Well maybe a bespoke quiz or cryptic crossword would fit the bill, on any theme, of any size, by the author of [counts on fingers] more than 900 published crosswords, i.e. Me. Give me a shout!

Thanks for sharing this, @englangblog.bsky.social —it's how I found out I was in the Times yesterday!

Doing this later this month! www.eventbrite.ie/e/getting-to...

If any kids go "6-7!" to you, respond with "That's Numberwang!"

2x 'going forwards' in an email just struck me. It's far less common than 'going forward' in any dialect, but more British than American. I've written about the -ward(s) words here: separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2013/07/towa...

One book that's going to stick with me a long time* is @michaelerard.bsky.social's Bye Bye I Love You. *Maybe till I say my last words. I hope so. It'll be particularly useful then! I was lucky to be able to review it for @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/languages-ll...

Thank you, newsletter subscribers who've donated to @rescue.org on my birthday's behalf. Would love to meet my goal before the end of the month: www.justgiving.com/page/ml-murp...

I would rather live next door to someone who speaks another language than live next door to someone who doesn’t want to live near people who speak other languages. I know nothing about Person A but I know person B is a shitbird.

You've just made me realise what the true north-south divide is.

Pumpkin contest patreon.com/berkeleymews

Did I ever know that B F Skinner's first name was Burrhus? Seems like I must have met that fact before, but it seemed new today. Anyhow, Burrhus. I want to meet a baby named Burrhus.

Gianmarco Soresi’s discussion of language and political views in comedy here is useful podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/g...

I know nothing about Dr Who, but, for Londoners, the phrase "Going For Dinner With Billie Piper" is the absolute best way to remember the order of the vertical streets running east to west in Soho (Greek, Frith, Dean, Wardour, Berwick, Poland) and has saved many a late night out

The first female lawyer qualified in the UK 105 years ago. A And now this. Oh, the pace of change is so dizzingly slow www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/goodbye...

I understand Ancient Greek city-states better than I understand how the UK is able to sustain this kind of party system with first-past-the-post elections.

"I never thought the AI leopards would eat *my* face."

My October newsletter has hit the inboxes. If not yours, then click through for a look and if you like it, hit 'subscribe' (it's free and easy). lynneguist.substack.com/p/i-hadnt-ha...

Big school is exactly right, and is ultimately the source of the rot. Academics think they’re there to produce new knowledge and transmit it, *along with how to generate it*, to perpetuate the cycle; everyone else thinks they’re there to teach bigger school.

Mmmm...with added Boar's Head.

In the Comedian's Comedian podcast this week, Alan Davies refers to 'segue' as something 'the Americans say'. That surprised me—and I can't see any evidence for it being particularly AmE.

A reminder for UK residents

After submitting a FOIA request UKRI, I obtained success rates by three grant call scheme and I can only say that I am disheartened by the results: - AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2% - ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1% - ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%

Next time your mate is deep in a reverie about the immutable, exceptional nature of English identity, you might want to show them this picture and remind them that 300 years ago this would have been enough to send the entire kingdom into a revolutionary, effigy burning, chapel torching frenzy

Every time I’m in the news or on the blog talking about polite words, I hear from lots of people that they ‘always’ say please in X or Y situation. If that is indeed true, then please be aware that other people find you creepy AF.

I'm in Newsweek this week, talking (as ever!) about polite words. www.newsweek.com/american-mov...

This is just legally; in actual fact, a lot more of the world, alas, should be in red.

Latest blog post: If I hadn't have had the phenomenon pointed out to me, I might not have noticed the extra 'have' in this sentence. But is it a British or American 'have'? Have a read and see: separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2025/10/hadn...

This is one of three cartoons I have in the current Private Eye.

Oh my goodness, it gets earlier every year. The Word of the Year thread starts here with the 2025 German Youth WotY: das crazy uk.news.yahoo.com/das-crazy-vo...

New paper with @ryanlepic.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1515/ling.... Our previous research showed that ✨️inherently plural meanings✨️ favor two-handed signs across sign languages, now we see that hearing non-signers also produce more two-handed forms when asked to gesture plural meanings! 👐🏼 #linguistics

E.E. Cummings once had a collection of poems rejected by 14 publishers. When he eventually got it published as "No Thanks" in 1935, he dedicated it to those 14 publishers in a visual poem shaped like a funeral urn

I do often remember how the UK did this *before* Trump was elected and yet a lot of the world likes to pretend now that the US invented the right-wing backlash.

Latest blog post: If I hadn't have had the phenomenon pointed out to me, I might not have noticed the extra 'have' in this sentence. But is it a British or American 'have'? Have a read and see: separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2025/10/hadn...

Bed-Stuy.

Great moments in redaction history.

#31daysofgraves Day 18: Mistake. On this stone, the carver Thomas Johnson II apparently got the month wrong, because he carved October but then crossed it out and added “Nover” above it. Carved for John Day, 1752, and located in West Springfield, Massachusetts.

In a fit of absolutely excessive politeness, the organizers of the "No Kings" event in Stockholm today would much rather you didn't say "No Kings": www.mobilize.us/nokings/even...

Joke wot I wouldn't've got till I lived in UK and had a kid.

Perfectly Common BrE Words the @NYTimesGames Spelling Bee Has Denied Me*: An Occasional Series OCHE *and @jeffgrim.bsky.social Now added to the blog list: separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2023/04/nyt-...