If GH stands for P as in HiccoughOUGH stands for O as in DoughPHTH stands for T as in PhthisisEIGH stands for A as in NeighbourTTE stands for T as in GazetteEAU stands for O as in PlateauThen the correctg way to spell POTATO would be GHOUGHPHTHEIGHTTEEAU. (I don't know where this came from originally, […]
A couple of days ago someone wrote to me and asked if I had heard of 'Corpus Linguistics'. The first thing that popped into my head was "dead words". (Corpus - corpse / linguistics - words). In my mind's eye I saw a load of words lying around, unloved and unused, dying or dead. […]
Transcript A Bit of Fry and Laurie A policeman (Stephen Fry) and Derek (Hugh Laurie) are at the police station. P: All right. Could I just have your name, please, sir? D: Right, uh…hold on a second….(reaches into his pocket)…Ready? P: Yes. D: My name is Derek (drops a pack of gum on the counter—thunk). […]
According to Oxford University English professor Kathryn Sutherland, Jane Austen was a poor speller and erratic grammarian who got a big helping hand from her editor William Gifford. After studying 1,100 handwritten pages of unpublished work from the pen of Jane Austen, the professor concluded that they contradicted the claim by Austen's brother Henry that […]