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JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis joint work discovered

The beginning of a joint book by CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien has been discovered in a manuscript book in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. An American academic called Steven Beebe, of Texas State University,...

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Barack Obama's colourful shellacking found its origins in India

President Barack Obama said, "I took a shellacking," after the bad mid-term election results for the Democrats. It sounds like something from a gangster film, as well it might, since the term is of...

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The thing about the thing is

The thing is, it’s the thing is. Not the thing is is. So why’s everyone saying the latter? "The thing is is that your party promised at the election …", "The thing is is that this album isn’t good as...

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The 'Omnishambles' and the power of political language

“Omnishambles”, appropriated from “The Thick of It” by Ed Miliband to describe the Government, is not a bad word, if a bastard one. Not that anyone cares much about that these days, when there are...

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There's nothing wrong with Americanisms: it's management-speak that is the...

A study of children’s writing by the Oxford University Press suggests that our language is being Americanised. Of course English as spoken here and as spoken in the USA have always played off each...

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It is easy to mock the Queen’s English Society – but our language will be...

The Queen’s English Society is dead. After just 22 people attended their annual meeting, and nobody put themselves forward to become the next chairman, the society was wound up. Liberal linguists will...

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A few thoughts on grammar

Ignorance of grammar means ignorance of the structure of the language. To say that you might as well set up as a doctor without studying anatomy as embark on a career as a writer without a knowledge...

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