Language
Schroder – one man’s journey into night
Erik Schroder is an East German who last saw his mother when he was five years old. In 1975 only his unspeaking father crossed the Wall with him into West… Continue reading
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In defence of William Shakespeare’s nonsense
‘It was a lover and his lass’ from As You Like It It was a lover and his lass With a hey and a ho and a hey nonino, That… Continue reading
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The Ize Have It
She divided us in life, she’s dividing us in death. Baroness Thatcher was so controversial that a single letter in a single word in the subtitle of a book that… Continue reading
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How To Pronounce It – U and non-U. A guide for George “innit” Osborne.
Sometimes, in the joyous lotteries we call ‘secondhand bookshops’, you find a volume that takes you back to a different era because of its physical appearance. Sometimes you find one… Continue reading
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Budget Day: should our times really be called ‘the age of austerity’?
It is Budget Day. Prepare for another barrage of “messages” about the virtues or perils, depending on your point of view, of ‘austerity’. From where has this ubiquitous term come?… Continue reading
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Help! What is ‘lurching’?
David Cameron is not for lurching. No lurch to the right, he says. The word ‘lurch’ underscores commentary on the government’s difficulties; but what does it actually mean? As so… Continue reading
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Discovering poetry: how the Psalms made the English
Psalm 42, verses 1-8 Philip Sidney Miles Coverdale Miles Coverdale’s translation of the psalms was among the first fruit of Henry VIII’s ambivalent reformation. The religion of Henry’s England was… Continue reading
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Interview with a writer: John Ashbery
John Ashbery is recognized as one of the most eminent American poets of the twentieth-century. He also been called America’s greatest living poet today. Ashbery published his first book of… Continue reading
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Junot Diaz, the new Saul Bellow
Every so often a writer renovates a whole literary landscape from underneath. Armed to the teeth with slang and learning, Saul Bellow reinvented American prose with The Adventures of Augie… Continue reading
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Historical directories: Street View for time-travellers - Spectator Blogs
Fancy a walk into London’s past? How about a stroll down Fleet Street in 1895? Or Oxford Street in 1899? It can be done. I can’t promise pictures, but I… Continue reading
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Which words would you ban?
Which words in current use would you ban? Lake Superior State University answers this question each year, with its famous ‘List of Words to be Banished from the Queen’s English… Continue reading
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Do you wish you were far from the madding crowd?
From ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ ‘The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,… Continue reading
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The language of criminals
The English language is, as English would have it, an odd duck. Its nuances are capricious — to the non-native, maliciously so — but its lyricism widely praised. My preoccupation… Continue reading
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A gallimaufry of new words
Walk into a coffee shop on any high street today and you’re confronted by an amazing array of caffeine-connected choices: flat white, red eye and doppio to name a few.… Continue reading
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Butlins and the return of the apostrophe - Spectator Blogs
When you begin in subediting – the odd little craft of preparing other people’s journalism for publication – certain things, or pairs of things, are drummed into you. St James’… Continue reading
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Interview: James Kelman
Born in Glasgow in 1946, James Kelman left school at fifteen to begin an apprenticeship as a compositor. His first collection of short stories ‘An Old Pub Near the Angel’… Continue reading
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The language of left and right
Stephan Shakespeare has a fascinating article on Con Home today, comparing which words voters associate with the terms ‘right-wing’ or ‘left-wing’. The results aren’t too surprising: the language of the… Continue reading
52 CommentsAn arena where words are dangerous
‘it was a deranged individual living in a time and place where anger and vitriol had reached such a fever pitch that we had dehumanized those in public life’ The… Continue reading
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