linguistlaura

As you know, I'm a big fan of just listening out for interesting linguistic usages, anything that catches the ear or eye. So recently, w...

Because I have two long dogs (a greyhound and a galga) I follow long dog content on instagram, and I'm always slightly intrigued by thei...

We were in Brussels just before Christmas for a little holiday, and we visited a couple of lambic breweries while we were there. One of the ...

It's National Grammar Day! Sadly this isn't as fun as it sounds due to the idiots on the internet. However, here is a thing I have l...

I was watching a programme about Spitalfields market. A man, aged probably in his early 60s, who had worked there his whole life, was talkin...

I moved to Kent two years ago now, or very nearly, and we've been properly living in Margate for just over a year (I semi-commuted for t...

I'm watching Salamander. It's a kind of political thriller, lots of running about, photocopying and suchlike. It's also Belgian,...

Linguists have to spend quite a lot of time explaining that they don't correct people's grammar, and trying to prevent people from j...

On Twitter today, Richard Osman bemoaned the fact that British English lacks a word that covers both 'chocolate' and 'sweets...

A couple of weeks ago (because I am slow to get round to blogging), that Neville Gwynne person was on the BBC again talking his usual nonsen...

OK, tell me this: can you translate the following conversation, in a language that you almost certainly speak? Jon do? A dee nah.  Answer...

You know, Richard Dawkins is a clever chap, I think he writes well and I've enjoyed many of his books. But sometimes he says such stupid...

I can't now remember where I heard the phrase 'informant incompetence', but it's a slightly cruel way of describing a perenn...

Those of us who are interested in dialect syntax but don't make it their business to conduct experiments into it are always on the liste...

I noticed a thing the other day. It's a thing I've noticed about the Northeast (English) dialect before (specifically, I've noti...

Here in the Northeast of England (and in some other British dialects), it's common to hear phrases like ten year or twenty pound , wi...

What accent do you like best? What accent would you most like your doctor to speak with? The UK is lucky enough to have a fantastically wi...

Superlinguo over at Tumblr has posted a list of number plates that police cars in Australia's Northern Territory will carry to promote...

As you know, the paradigm of reflexive pronouns in English is as follows: myself yourself himself/herself/itself ourselves yourselves ...