With 2009 drawing to a close, nearly every newspaper and magazine in existence is currently filling its pages with end of decade lists: films, albums, influential political figures, artists, you know the sort of list. But BBC news magazine also offers us some good language discussion as it looks for the most important words of the noughties.
The language expert and author, Susie Dent (who has written some really good books on language change, the annual Language Report) offers a few suggestions - chav, green, tweet and poking among others - but the BBC also wants your suggestions. Have a look here for more. And my personal favourite has to be (drum roll)... celebutard: a blend of (I think) celebrity + débutante + retard, a nice and catty term of abuse for a recently semi-famous nonentity.
Elsewhere, if you're interested in new words and where they come from - and you should be 'cos you're an English Language student, innit - then you can do much much worse than Buzzword on the excellent Macmillan Dictionary pages here.
-
As part of the Original Writing section of the NEA, students will be required to produce a commentary on their piece. This blog post will pr... -
As lots of students are embarking on the Language Investigation part of the Non-Exam Assessment, I thought it might be handy to pick up a fe...
-
When Dan asked what he should post about next on this blog, one of the most common responses was this, the World Englishes topic. Maybe ...