Have a read of this for a good overview of what's what in WOTY land.

Nice overview of recent WOTYs and the worlds & times they reflect. Decent style model for P2Q4 as well! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

2025 has been a very busy year here at EMC. We supported thousands of students and teachers through our courses, conferences and resources this year and hope for more of the same in 2026!!

This is really interesting but I also have lots of questions about methodology and application. I'll do some more reading! theconversation.com/people-with-...

So many headlines I could use for this, but I am not *that* basic. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

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...

Nice overview of #WOTY2025 here theconversation.com/slop-vibe-co...

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

📯 Babel No53 is online now! Trinidadian English Creole, Estonian humour, the roots of fruits, and much more 🖥️ Digital subscribers can read on at: cloud.3dissue.com/18743/41457/... ✉️ Print copies will be posted out through December 🏪 Subscribe at babelzine.co.uk

I had a great time talking to Dan Clayton (@englangblog.bsky.social) and cohost Raj Rana on the Lexis podcast about the Word of the Year. Our conversation spanned how they are chosen, why they matter, what patterns we see in 2025, what they say about us, and so much more.

Oh dear. This is almost archetypal in its clichéd, patronising advice & pseudo-linguistic 'evidence' (the JESP study on exclamation marks *didn't* make that specific claim). BBC News - Can I just check - are my emails holding me back at work?! Xx - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🎄🎅🎄

Here's a bit about one of the potential WOTY2025s we talk about on the latest @lexispodcast.bsky.social 'Kavanaugh stop' and what it relates to. bsky.app/profile/lata...

Patrons! Our live show is happening in but a few hours. We'll be counting down our #WordsOfTheWeekOfTheYear2025 . This post has the link, and all patrons can attend, even free ones. We'd love to see you. www.patreon.com/posts/link-b...

This is a good one for all of you out there looking back at a year thinking 'How the hell did all of that happen in just one year?'.

I've done a blog on some work we've been doing with year 11s in the Black Country about the poem 'Homing' and the dialect of the area. englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/teachin...

Rage Bait?! That's *two* words!!! share.descript.com/view/Yzj5Lej...

Interesting free-to-access article about rhetoric in latest @natefeed.bsky.social English in Education, which recommends 'EMC Approaches to Rhetoric'. EMC director @andrewemc.bsky.social has a piece behind the paywall about nature writing in the same issue www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The kanji of the year has been announced as “kuma” (熊), meaning “bear” - owing to the increase in bear attacks in Northern Japan this year. news.livedoor.com/article/deta...

Lots of early interest in the new offering from @englangblog.bsky.social - teacher conference about social and occupational groups

We'll be talking about this iconic moment in the death of a slang term in our next episode. bsky.app/profile/hoov...

Quick peek at our next episode and what we're talking about with @mashedradish.bsky.social share.descript.com/view/XQ5aTYF...

Apologies for sharing the Mail Online but stone me, you only have to get to the *second word* of the article to see how gendered the reporting of this case is. I'd say there's a good investigation in here but it's a bit obvious! www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

We're delighted to let you know that EMC MediaMagazine has gone off for print today, with the download available already for web subscribers. Loads of articles about Film and Media Studies set texts along with plenty for the general reader. Kneecap anybody? englishandmedia.co.uk/emc-magazines/

'The dictionary will not be huge because relatively few words survive, but experts from Aberystwyth University say they expect they will end up with more than 1,000 words.'

"_Rage bait_ is evocative and useful. Because the English language had previously failed to provide such an efficient term, we should be glad that the internet has come through." #woty2025 www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

Maybe more about social meaning than literal meaning?

Here's an overview of a few of the #WOTY2025 choices so far. theconversation.com/2025s-words-...

I'm here for the expression 'nonsense grenade' 🤣 What Teenagers Are Saying About ‘6-7’ and the Era of ‘Brain Rot’ - The New York Times www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/l...

This is worth a look: Accents at work: share your story | University of Leeds share.google/hXEVtLkkjM0T...

The December issue of @engmediacentre.bsky.social emagazine is out online this week so if you've got a subscription you can access the following ace articles for A level English Language...

Worth a read www.theguardian.com/music/2025/d...

This is really interesting and offers something of a challenge to the theory of 'sociolinguistic maturation', the idea that our language style tends to stick once we reach adulthood.

Love this for a language paper 2/ language of food lesson- comparison of BBC ‘neutral’ presentation vs in depth guardian piece by the person involved + bonus on colonialism & language ownership! #TeamEnglish @englangblog.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/food/comment... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is great from @emhumps.bsky.social on the character traits and character development shown through linguistic correction in the Wicked films. Nice for Paper 2 Language Discourses. theconversation.com/wicked-for-g...

I'll be talking about critical discourse analysis at this event for A-level students, in very illustrous company

Hot on the heels of our London A-level English Language conference, we've announced details of our Macclesfield conference at the end of February. It's another cracking line-up. www.englishandmedia.co.uk/conferences/...

Do you know Zoom & other companies are encouraging discrimination against employees for things like "pausing too long" or not sounding sufficiently "charismatic"? Read all about our dystopian present in my new paper, out today in JASA! (Seriously, read it. It's important) doi.org/10.1121/10.0...

This was from a couple of days ago but shows how some companies have decided to surf the AI wave in their language as well as their (ahem) strategic vision... Accenture dubs its 800,000 staff ‘reinventors’ as it adapts to AI share.google/wPeF4EyRlZlG...

Only a few places left for this. Come along and have a mince pie* with us? (*mince pies may or may not be served on this day)

So it's 'ragebait' that gets the vote for Oxford #WOTY2025. "Where last year’s choice, brain rot, captured the mental drain of endless scrolling, rage bait shines a light on the content purposefully engineered to spark outrage and drive clicks." Casper Grathwohl, President, Oxford Languages.

Slightly niche read but a familiar picture around class and accent. www.gramophone.co.uk/blogs/articl...

Kinda surreal to have given an academic talk at a venue I went to as an A-Level student to hear an academic give an academic talk. Full ⭕

The 2 AL conferences we've run this term to 1800 students have shown how vibrant the subject is in terms of enthusiasm, intellectual curiosity + commitment. This is so heartening for English + added to promising green shoots in the Curriculum + Assessment Review might mark the start of a comeback!

Look 👀 We did tell you!

I am (eventually, below the fold) in USA Today (along with @byagoda.bsky.social) talking about that British teacher survey... eu.usatoday.com/story/news/w...