According to researchers at Leicester and Leeds universities, pushy parents help their children do better at school.   They say that the effort a parent puts into ensuring their child buckles down to schoolwork has a greater impact than that put in by the child or the school! So, if you fail your exams, blame your […]

The British Library is tracking how pronunciation is changing in Britain, using of all things the Mr Men book, Mr Tickle.  Volunteers are being asked to record a chapter from a Mr Man book to see how certain words and accents are changing. The library wants as many people as possible to record the opening […]

Another case of "dangerous English" has struck.  This time it's a sports facility, Salford Community Leisure Centre, that's been affected.   Posters were put up to advertise the indoor bowls facility, but instead of offering a game of indoor bowls, the poster offered a game of "indoor bowels". I hope they have a qualified proctologist.  

We've been discussing the compensation culture that has reared its ugly head in the UK.  We started by reading the following article:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2010/10/the_truth_behind_health_and_sa.html And some of the dafter claims people have made. We will carry on reading an article that highlights the problems that compensation culture can cause. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-11569523

A New York Times article reported on NELL - the Never-Ending Language Learning system - a research project under way at Carnegie Mellon University. NELL works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, scanning hundreds of millions of Web pages for text patterns that it uses to learn facts, 390,000 to date, with an […]

Today is the European Day of Languages. European funding provides 50 million Euros per year to support language activities and projects. English is by far the most-used language in the EU institutionally, also in print and online. But I don't get a cent. Humph.