by Libby Mimnagh | Dec 5, 2018 | Culture, Languages, Translation, words
In this weeks blog, we decided to look into the intereting etymologies of words we all use, but probably havent given much thought into their origins. Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time!...
by Libby Mimnagh | Nov 21, 2018 | Accents and Dialects, Culture, Languages, linguistics
It is easy to forget just how much of an impact the language we speak has on our life. We take language for granted as our means of communication, but the language we speak actually has much more impact on our lives than most of us realise. Would it surprise you to...
by Libby Mimnagh | Nov 7, 2018 | Culture, Languages, linguistics
A team of linguists at the University of York last year rediscovered 30 “lost” words from the English language. These words have fallen out of use with time but are actually still relevant today. The researchers scoured through old books and dictionaries, looking for...
by Libby Mimnagh | Oct 31, 2018 | Culture, Halloween, Traditions
In honour of Halloween, we wanted to delve into the world of cryptozoology and take a look at the legendary monsters from various cultures around the world! Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that aims to prove the existence of entities (referred to as...
by Libby Mimnagh | Oct 24, 2018 | Culture, Halloween, Languages
It is quite common knowledge that the family-friendly fairy tales we know are descended from something much darker, but do we really know all of the gory details? In honour of Halloween and our favourite German siblings, we wanted to take a trip into the depraved...
by Libby Mimnagh | Oct 17, 2018 | Culture, Languages, linguistics
Most of us are aware that the word ‘autumn’ is used mainly by English people, and ‘fall’ is used mainly in America. But why does this season have two completely different names depending on where you are in the word? It might surprise you to...
by Libby Mimnagh | Oct 10, 2018 | Feminism, Languages
It is often asserted that women talk more than men, an assumption that has been believed for hundreds of years. A commonly quoted statistic is that women talk up to three times more than men, with men speaking 7000 words a day and women speaking 20000. This statistic...
by Libby Mimnagh | Oct 3, 2018 | Google Translate, Languages
It has been reported in the press lately that relatively soon ‘pet translators’ will be developed, allowing humans to understand animal languages. Professor Con Slobodchikoff at Northern Arizona University is attempting to develop a cat and dog translation device...
by Libby Mimnagh | Sep 19, 2018 | Accents and Dialects, Languages
It has been reported in the news that there is growing concern that virtual assistant devices, like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home, may be causing a decline in regional accents. This claim seems to be backed up by a recent survey by The Life Science Centre in...
by Libby Mimnagh | Sep 12, 2018 | Languages, linguistics
Words are incredibly complex things. Whether it’s words that have the same spelling but different meanings (homonym) or the same word which has two completely opposite meanings (contranym), the English Language can be an incredibly confusing thing. It is...
by Libby Mimnagh | Aug 31, 2018 | Culture, Languages, Uncategorised
Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) was a village sign language that was used widely on the island of Martha’s Vineyard from the early 18th century, right up until 1952. What made this sign language remarkable is that it was used by both deaf and hearing people,...
by Libby Mimnagh | Aug 24, 2018 | Uncategorised
The English Language has many strange idioms that we accept as pretty much normal, but would probably confuse a foreign speaker, for example; ‘Kick the Bucket’, or ‘Bob’s your Uncle’. This got us thinking about other countries, and their strange idioms that would...
