Category: English language

Author, playwright and screenwriter Alan Bennett (1934-), a Yorkshireman, began writing in 1960, when he was a member of the illustrious Oxford […]

Evidently there are far more British words for insulting people than there are for praising them, probably because insults sound funnier. Indeed, […]

Londoner Harold Pinter (1930-2008), writer for stage, screen and print, actor and director, was awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature. This […]

The relatively modern concept of ‘standard English’ has become known as Received Pronunciation (RP) or even ‘BBC English’. It was originally based […]

Sir P.G. (Pelham Grenville, nicknamed ‘Plum’) Wodehouse (1881-1975), from Surrey, became one of Britain’s best-loved and most accomplished writers. His literary genius […]

At the time of WW2 there were at least 50 distinct British dialects, some with derived names such as Cockney, Brummie, Scouse, […]

In 1967 Lord Jock Campbell (1912-94) from Dunbartonshire was about to head the development of the new town, Milton Keynes, following his […]

In the period immediately following the Norman Conquest of 1066, there were three main languages spoken in England ~ Old English (O.E.), […]

We mainly have the French to thank for many of our food words (like omelette and mustard), but our imports also include […]

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in ‘British India’, a place he loved, settled awhile in the USA with his American wife […]

Lord Byron (George Gordon, 1788-1824) gave English literature the ‘Byronic hero’, seen in the novels of the Brontë sisters, for example. This […]