Latest Watch your Language

Lifestyles

Watch your language: The beauty and challenge of writing in another language

Grading short essays and compositions in Spanish can be both rewarding and frustrating. Native speakers of English learning ...

Lifestyles

Watch Your Language: Language rules can be perplexing

It turns out that this semester I have had to teach past participles to students in two different ...

Lifestyles

Watch Your Language: Is this correct or is it a blooper?

It’s June, the regular school year is finished, and it’s time to relax with a new set of ...

Lifestyles

Watch your Language — Correct or incorrect use?

Today’s language column is devoted to a look at the many ways in which everyday language use can ...

Lifestyles

Watch your language — Learning a lesson in language

was in the south of England a few weeks ago (part of a research trip to learn more ...

Lifestyles

Watch your language — The wrong word often slips in to a sentence

It’s July and while tomatoes are just starting to turn red and we’re waiting for a tasty harvest, ...

Lifestyles

Typos and Errors

Today’s column presents the latest batch of typos and errors. Typos are often due to our typing quickly ...

Lifestyles

Watch your language — ‘There are leeks in the bottle’

This column is dedicated to another set of examples of those pesky little misspellings and grammatical infelicities that ...

Lifestyles

An autumnal harvest of bloopers

Language and the multiple ways we use and misuse it continue to fascinate many of us. In these ...

Lifestyles

Insights from a forgotten food writer

If you’ve never heard the name Clementine Paddleford and you enjoy reading good writing, then you are in ...

Lifestyles

It’s been a year filled with ‘uniquities’

While some things have changed in our recent past, other things remain the same. Bloopers abound, and they ...

Lifestyles

COLUMN — Board game explores sayings from around the world

If you are looking for a new game to play during the holidays, you may be interested in ...

Lifestyles

Some thoughtful sayings to ponder

This column is dedicated to interesting, inspirational and/or original sayings from mainly U.S. English. A future column will ...

Lifestyles

‘Class’ical spelling issues abound

This past academic year was one of the most challenging and unforgettable years many of us have ever ...

Lifestyles

Out of the mouths of children

As we continue to confront the consequences of the coronavirus and deal with the effects, humor is more ...

Lifestyles

Fun with puns and signs

In the spirit of keeping things light and cheery, while keeping a keen eye on our language, today’s ...

Lifestyles

Some levity from church bulletin faux pas

Because we are living in strange and uncertain times, I thought I’d dedicate this column to bringing a ...

Lifestyles

More bloopers

‘Tis the season not only for more bloopers but for unpleasant illnesses for students. I received an email ...

Lifestyles

What’s in a word

A few weeks ago, a colleague in math, who is keenly aware of language patterns and inconsistencies, asked ...

Lifestyles

Books about language

With all the back-to-school preparations and focus, this is a good time for a column dedicated to books ...

Lifestyles

Duel enrollment, large rolls and participation grapes

If you caught the last episode of “Call the Midwife” you might recall that Fred, the Nonnatus House ...

Lifestyles

The formation of words

The study of the formation of words is morpohology. Morph is from the Greek meaning form or shape ...

Lifestyles

More from the Great British Baking Show

With the enormous popularity of the Great British Baking Show, the U.S. audience enjoys seeing the competition in ...

Lifestyles

Language bloopers

It’s time for another column on language bloopers, those unexpected and humorous misuses of words and phrases that ...

Lifestyles

Translation humor

This semester I’m teaching a class in translation from Spanish to English. One of the texts I enjoy ...

Lifestyles

Toponymy, study of place names

Toponymy is the study of place names and this column explores some of the many interesting and unusual ...

Lifestyles

Is everything tickety-boo?

It wasn’t too long ago that PBS broadcast a wonderful show from the BBC called “My Mother and ...

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