Politics and the English Language

Anglish-Language Thoughts

Niall O'Donnell 16 Comments

No, not English. Anglish.

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Why do we Say Côte d’Ivoire in English?

Niall O'Donnell 4 Comments

Looking at my statistics earlier, I saw that someone had visited this site today from Côte d’Ivoire (hi). Or, if you prefer, The Ivory Coast. Obviously Côte d’Ivoire is French, and The Ivory Coast is English, but you might have noticed that Côte d’Ivoire is often used in English as the name of the country, even though we usually translate names of countries into English. Why do we make an exception in the case of Côte d’Ivoire then?

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Fire and Fury

Niall O'Donnell 6 Comments

You may have heard of this book, an insider’s look at Trump’s chaotic White House. I have some doubts about how true all the book’s revelations are, but some of them sound convincing, like Trump going to bed at 6.30pm with a cheeseburger.

You might known that the title comes from a speech earlier this year in which Trump threatened to “unleash fire and fury” on North Korea. Fury was an interesting choice of word. You could tell that it was one of Trump’s scripted speeches, because he normally wouldn’t have the vocabulary to come up with such a word spontaneously.

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I Me Mine

Niall O'Donnell 8 Comments

Over breakfast today, thinking about what to write today, I noticed this article on the BBC website:

Why South Koreans Rarely Use the Word ‘Me’

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I Recognise You…

Niall O'Donnell 4 Comments

Yesterday, Donald Trump recognised (or recognized, if you prefer) Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get political this time. There’s nothing I can add to the numerous international condemnations of this move anyway. Once I’d finished shaking my head and sighing with resignation, I began to think about how apparently strange it is to use the verb to recognise in this way.

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Is Donald Trump the Humblest or the Most Humble Person in the World?

Niall O'Donnell 23 Comments

There may be one advantage to Donald Trump being President of the United States (only one!), though it’s quite a selfish one: he certainly gives me a lot of food for thought. Sometimes I really don’t want to write about him, or even think about him, or exist in the same universe as him, but he can be hard to ignore, particularly when he demonstrates his unusually dysfunctional relationship with the English language.

Last week he gave us another addition to the evergrowing list of did-he-actually-just-say-that? moments:

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What’s for Tea?

Niall O'Donnell 21 Comments

Would you like tea? You would? Great! But please, take a seat, because this is going to get complicated.

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