English

Ah, English. What a delightful accident of history you are, providing a lingua franca for the modern world, a linguistic headache for your learners, and gainful employment for me. This page is for articles on both the structure and history of the language, as well as tips I have picked up for how to get the better of it.

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23/6/2021 – You Know More Than You Think About: Beowulf
Think Beowulf is nothing but ye olde incomprehensible Ænglishe? Let me show you how much you actually already know.

20/7/2021 – You Know More Than You Think About: The Wanderer
A heart-wrenching poem of loss and loneliness that feels so modern, despite being over a thousand years old. You’ll love it – so why let language stand in your way?

17/3/2022 – Of Mouses and Mans? — The Origins of English’s Vowel-Swapping Nouns and Verbs
English has a rebellious and diehard gang of nouns and verbs that like to change their vowels. How did English come to have this system — or systems?

22/8/2023 – Five Antiquities of English
There’s lots of good stuff out there on how English has changed over the centuries, but how about the ways in which English is really old?

4/2/2024 – Streets Ahead: When Roman Roads Met Old English
Here’s a rabbit hole of word nerdery that I recently fell down, all about a subtle legacy of Rome in English place names.

30/11/2024 – Oneteen, twoteen? The origins of ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’
Within English’s logical system of decimal counting, the numbers ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’ are disruptors. Where did English get them from?

22/10/2025 – The Silence of the Letters
Have you ever heard one of English’s infamous silent letters? Actually, yes, sometimes, because some earn their keep in non-obvious ways.

14/11/2025 – A Voice for the Voiceless: English’s Lost Consonants
I seized upon an archaic H in a Middle English song about happy animals as my chance to write about lost English sounds.