US web monitoring firm, Global Language Monitor, has declared the millionth Englith word to be "Web 2", which is a term used for the latest generation of web products. (They trawl the internet for new words and terms and once a word or phrase has been used at least 25,000 times, it accepts it. Seemingly […]

Scientists at the University of Reading have used a supercomputer called ThamesBlue to model the evolution of words in English over the last 30,000 years. The results suggest that the oldest words were "I" and "who", which have been in use for at least 10,000 years. The most commonly used words included the numbers 'two', […]

"Rome wasn't built in a day" is something that you say which means that it takes a long time to do an important job. This photo shows the Coliseum in Rome. Original photo by Eustaquio Santimano

Mourning sickness is a collective emotional condition of "recreational grieving" by individuals at the death of murder victims or celebrities. It's a play on the term "morning sickness", a condition that affects more than half of all pregnant women. Some critics have described the public displays of mourning as "phony" and more for the benefit […]

When we say something is "pants" we mean it's rubbish. To see this illustrated, watch this video:-

Quite a few new words and phrases have entered the Chambers Dictionary this year. Here are some of the more interesting ones:- Blue-on-blue - fire from one's own side or allied forces, as opposed to fire coming from enemy forces, sometimes called friendly fire. Blu-ray - a blue laser used to read and write discs. […]