It seems like only a few years ago, when, as chain coffee shops like Starbucks became popular, every second comedian felt compelled to joke about how coffee shops had so many crazy types of coffee.
Now though, such chains are commonplace, and we’re all quite used to the idea of being able to get a variety of coffees. Have you ever wondered though, what all those names actually mean?
Recently a student was trying to think of the word umbrella. They knew the French word (parapluie), but that didn’t help them to remember or figure out what the English word is. And as I thought about the word umbrella, I completely understood why: it actually has nothing to do with rain at all.
It’s probably pretty well-known that gasoline and petrol are the same thing, being the American- and British-English terms respectively for the same fuel.
It’s not unusual for their to be such marked differences between the words for the same thing in both varieties of English. But I’ve always been curious as to why the words are so different, especially considering that petrol has a fairly logical etymology.
Hi there! Would you like a pepperoni pizza? Of course you would! Well, here you go…
I read this article recently, suggesting that Italian is the most beautiful language in the world. I was intrigued, thinking that obviously the idea of beauty in any terms is going to be subjective, but I could also see why many people would choose Italian, so I read on.
Following on from yesterday’s look at mispronunciations (and “mispronunciations”) by native speakers, I want to look specifically at how we often pronounce surnames differently, specifically surnames from other languages. I thought about this after watching The Godfather Part II recently, and noticing the way the character Senator Geary pronounces the surname Corleone*. Notice how it changes in the clip below (contains salty language!): Continue reading
Just a short post today, as it’s Sunday and I fancy a rest, but I think I’ll complement it with a reblog of one of my earlier posts.
I’m always amazed at the number of different countries you all hail from. I love looking at that little map on the stats page, and am proud and humbled to have had visitors from every continent. Yesterday I had my first visitor from Montenegro, or at least someone in Montenegro at the time (thank you, whoever you are!). In many ways, Montenegro is similar to Luxembourg: a small country with a complex history and an interesting name… Continue reading
English-Language Thoughts 