The Yorkshire Historical Dictionary has recently been published online by the University of York. The dictionary collects together more than 4,000 Yorkshire terms and is the life-long work of historian Dr George Redmonds, who died aged 82 in August 2018. The Yorkshire dialect dictionary is a fascinating insight into not only the changing vocabulary but also the culture, history and people of the region. Continue reading
The English language has spread around the world so dramatically since the Second World War that there are now more non-native English speakers than native English speakers. The number of English speakers has risen from 400 million to 1.5 billion over the past 70 years. English dominates many conversations between speakers of other languages, simply because it is the only language many people have in common. But will the dominance of English fade after Brexit? Continue reading
A U.S. academic has declared that the board game Scrabble is now too easy after changes in the English language have made the value of the letters meaningless. American academic Dr. Joshua Lewis suggests that the letter values need to be altered to make allowances for changes made to the English dictionary over recent years. But Scrabble makers, Mattel, claim Scrabble is down to luck and the company is resisting pressure to change the classic scoring system. Continue reading