Language
During the height of the Aids epidemic a body was established called the ‘Aids Council of NSW’. I’m sure in…
Language
Have you ever come across the ‘Oxford comma’? If you haven’t, here’s a short explanation. When you have a list…
Language
Richard Littlejohn wrote recently in Britain’s Daily Mail about an 18-page Inclusive Language Guide which has been sent out to…
Language
Now we tiptoe carefully into the area of the derogatory and offensive – those being the words used by the…
Language
The word ‘they’ has two legitimate uses and one illegitimate use. The first proper and legitimate use is as the…
Language
According to American journalist Kaylee McGhee White (writing in the Washington Examiner) it is now officially okay to use the…
Language
European and Indian languages seem to be related in the very distant past. Linguists are able, for example, to trace…
Language
The word ‘map’ no longer means just a bit of cartography – it now also means ‘minor attracted person’. In…
Language
The word ‘sovereignty’ is recorded as part of the English language since at least 1340 – a very old word…
Woke language
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) once said: ‘The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.’ And if the woke…
Language
When radicals want to upend society they often cloak their intentions under kind-sounding words. So, if the plan is to…
Language
British journalist Richard Godwin has alerted me to what may be the trendiest word of the moment: ‘namecore’. This is…
Language
As the contest to replace Boris Johnson draws towards its protracted close, we should remember that many of the original…
Language
A Speccie reader has alerted me to the use of an odd word ‘alum’ to refer to the graduates of…
Language
It was Will Self (writing in The Speccie) who drew my attention to the new word ‘uberise.’ He says he…
Language
No sooner had the words ‘blue murder’ appeared on the cover of this august journal than a Speccie reader was…
Language
Here is a delightful phrase which may well become a familiar idiom in English language: ‘weather dependent economy’. I encountered…
Language
No language column can ignore Professor Brendan Murphy’s extraordinary 78-word definition of ‘woman’. As you know, when he was questioned…
Language
Is it time to revisit how we define the word ‘racism’? Early in the 20th century the settled definition became…
Language
We live in a world that seems to have largely abandoned punctuation – those small marks between words that help…
Language
The word ‘emergency’ has been part of the English language since around 1630. Its most common political use today is…
Language
‘Bike shedding’ was coined by British historian and author C. Northcote Parkinson, famous for his book Parkinson’s Law (1957), but…
Language
News reports tell us there has been a small furore over a list of ‘derogatory and offensive terms’ included in…
Language
We all know ‘adult’ the noun, and we know what an ‘adult’ is (‘because,’ as a friend said to me,…
Language
Now a new and (I think) much needed expression: ‘disagreement consent’. It’s a play on a more familiar expression I…
