English language

The NY Mets are my Favourite Squadron

Niall O'Donnell 2 Comments

You wouldn’t say The Mets is my favourite team, would you? It’d be wrong, and sound strange, wouldn’t it?

But what about this:

Manchester United is my favourite team, or Manchester United are my favourite team?

I imagine that some of you chose the first, and some the second. And as is often the case with English, both are correct. Though how natural it sounds depends on where you’re from. Generally in British English, groups are referred to as plural words, but in American English they’re treated as singular words (unless the words are clearly plural with an s at the end, like the Mets or The Beatles). Continue reading →

Slang

Niall O'Donnell 1 Comment

Slang.

An important word for any language learner to be aware of: no matter how well someone learns a language in an academic context, it’s crucial to be exposed to slang in order to get a sense of how a language is really used by native speakers.

So I was interested recently when I came across someone proudly proclaiming that they knew that the word slang was actually a kind of portmanteau, meaning Short Language. I had my doubts. It simply felt too modern. I was sure that the word had existed for quite a long time, and that forming a word in such a way wouldn’t have been done before recent times. In fact, we tend not to make words in that fashion very often in English: combining the opening letters of the words of a definition of a word. It just seems too neat, too self-consciously “clever.”

So I investigated and my doubts were proven to be well-founded. Like with a lot of words, the origin is unclear, and it’s derived form words with similar words which evolved gradually over time, probably from old Nordic words.

So the next time you hear sometime tell you about an English-language fact that seems too good to be true, it probably is so.

Nice!

Niall O'Donnell 15 Comments

He’s a pretty nice guy.

Oh, that’s a nice picture of the two of you!

The food there is quite nice.

Nice is a word that’s come in for a lot of criticism. It’s quiet common to hear people say they hate it because it’s too weak, too soft: too nice. There are so many specific adjectives in English to describe something you like, they argue, that it’s a shame not to use them.

And I see their point. English is an incredibly extensive language, and it can be frustrating when people don’t make the most of the opportunities it affords them, and use the same words over and over.

And yet: sometimes something is just… nice. It’s not amazing, it’s not incredible, it’s not transcendent: it’s nice. It’s great to have all those adjectives at one’s disposal, but it’s important to select the best times to use them. Continue reading →

A Green and Icy Land

Niall O'Donnell 4 Comments

It’s a pretty common cliché by now that Greenland is actually very icy, and Iceland is… well, not green all the time, but certainly is some of the time in some areas, and definitely isn’t always icy!

So why the apparently contradictory names then? Continue reading →

Which Witch did the White Whale Whistle at?

Niall O'Donnell 6 Comments

Poor Wales, they put up a great fight, but a win for Portugal was a fair result, and at least they can be quite proud of getting to the semi-finals at all. Hearing the word Wales in the last few days made me think of the many childhood jokes based on the fact that Wales and Whales sound so similar.

You might have noticed that I’ve just said that Wales and whales sound similar. Not the same: similar. Hang on, you might be thinking: they sound identical! What’s he talking about!?

And you’re right: they are identical. But I’m also right: they’re similar. Isn’t English wonderful!? Continue reading →

Come on Wales!

Niall O'Donnell 5 Comments

To celebrate the historic occasion of Wales playing tonight in the semi-finals of their first ever European Championship, I want to write something short about English words of Welsh origin. Short, because there aren’t that many! I think this is largely because Welsh both looks and sounds so different from English that it’s different for Welsh words to enter the English language. But there are a few, such as… Continue reading →

Posh

Niall O'Donnell 21 Comments

I realised today that I often write about how words can become used regularly by being associated with a certain sense of prestige, and that I’m quite likely to use the word posh in this regard. I then became curious to research the origins of the word: partly because it’s an interesting word, loaded with meaning, and one that doesn’t quite  sound like an English word.

My other reason is because I’m already aware of one story about its origin which sounds too good to be true, and I wanted to see if that really is the case. Continue reading →