We have a new event (the first of its kind) coming up in April. It's an online revision conference for AQA A Level Eng Lang Paper 2 and it will feature three excellent guest speakers, along with top tips to approach questions about change & diversity. www.englishandmedia.co.uk/conferences/...

How do publisher style guides get made/decided? I'm writing something in which all the '%' symbols need to be changed to 'per cent'. I'm not complaining, I'm just intrigued as to how that choice was discussed and decided. Genuine question.

New eggcorn alert! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn

Incredibly sad news. Debbie was such a huge inspiration to so many of us. A brilliantly clever and supportive academic colleague, and just a fun person to spend time with

“each time my university friends jokingly echoed my Leeds-accented “no” with a noise that is perhaps best approximated as “nerhhh”, I found myself undergoing elocution conditioning.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... by @robynvinter.bsky.social

Good morning Manchester

An unnecessarily tricky consonant cluster

A view of Manchester from Bolton on this morning’s dog walk

I’ve written a long blog here that comes out of various things that I’ve worked on with other people this term. It’s about accents... again! Sorry, not sorry. englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/pride-a...

Quick walk between meetings* (*my meetings, not Patty’s)

What’s that? You’re stuck for gift ideas for a friend or relative who: a) is intrigued by accents; b) thinks some ways of speaking are better than others; d) thinks Susie Dent, David Crystal, Ian McMillan, Chris Mason, and Simon Mayo know a good book when they see it?!

I’m listening

Liking the updated announcement on my train from London to Manchester: “If you see anything suspicious or dodgy looking…”

A fascinating book. Totally engaging #KillingThatcher

Did you know people who stammer can often sing without any difficulty? Or that bilingual friends might use English when being funny but use their native language when discussing politics? @robdrummond.bsky.social delights us with stories of "languaging" today! APPLE: bit.ly/4ojU0Ac

We still have places on this course which also features @robdrummond.bsky.social

It feels really, really good to finally hold the hard copy of this in my hands! Years of work in one shiny new book 😊 www.bloomsbury.com/uk/language-...

Local dialect advertising #Bolton #GreaterManchester #Lancashire

Don’t worry. I spoke to BBC Newsround and said everything was fine 😁

Huge improvement to the 100ml rule

"Holliday...was running a marathon recently, some kids were holding a sign at 6.7-miles...she yelled “six, seven” to their delight. “For a brief moment” she says, “in our lonely, isolated, algorithm-driven world, I connected with those kids on something we shared" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A good thing, surely? Nonce will always remain an awkward example of UK English homonymy

In my latest blog post I delve into the implication of Trump's Compact on the field of educational linguistics--and it is not pretty. Why Trump’s Compact Poses an Existential Threat to Educational Linguistics educationallinguist.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/w...

Manchester, from Bolton.

Meet Patty, today’s editorial assistant

Italian blasphemy and German ingenuity: how swear words differ around the world www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

1998. Before singular 'they' came bursting onto the scene in.... oh... 14th C.

📖 Happy World Novel Week 2025! 👀 Butteries and wagger-pagger-baggers - read Katie Wales on Charles Dickens and university cant: babelzine.co.uk/wp-content/u...

So interesting! I’ve always wanted to look into the visual aspect of accents. ‘Different accents look different' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Worker sacked for mocking Irish accent unfairly dismissed www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Good to see a classic Traitors ‘yourself’ last night. First of the series I believe.

A brilliant night in Manchester with @threebeansaladpod.bsky.social!

As a new dog owner, I have to say that nothing prepared me for how committed dog-related businesses are to dog-related puns. They really commit.

A very narrow view of the English language! www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

EMC CPD Face to Face: Starting to Teach A Level English Language "I would strongly recommend it to all teachers of A Level English Language whether new to teaching the course or experienced teachers in need of new ideas and prompts." Book by: 8am on 2nd October buff.ly/fLPFvtl

Manchester, from Bolton

Exciting news: I've got a 3-page article on the Grasmere Dialect Plays in the Oct 2025 issue of 'Cumbria Life' magazine! Really hoping this will bring them to a wider audience @drpennybradshaw.bsky.social @countrystride.bsky.social For more on the Plays, head over to @grasdialectplays.bsky.social

The start of a new academic year. Seems like a good time to remind students and teachers who are looking at spoken language and identity for the first time that this is available and very accessible! In all the usual places. Please leave a review if you can😁

Sometimes it depresses me how little impact decades of the study of sociolinguistic variation and change has had on other areas of the language sciences (I get the same feeling about gesture studies), but I didn't even realise that this idea was prevalent in some areas of my own field!

1/4 Another recent language favourite comes from the really quite wonderful Dr. Rob Drummond. The book is focused on, well, how we 'talk'. Do you have an accent? Does it make you sound educated, powerful, or perhaps a bit dim and poor.

“Westminster isn’t kind to people with accents”

So was that! 😊

That was good

The irony, of course, is that the “phonetic way to say umami” is [umami].

A lovely walk up Winter Hill this morning☀️ #Bolton

Loved this episode of Cautionary Tales. A re-evaluation of ‘world’s worst poet’ and performer William McGonagall! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...