Free coffee and biscuits caused a rampage
“The staff of the English Department, in an unprecedented act of foolishness and with complete lack of foresight, decided to offer the languishing student body something to cheer them up and maybe carry them through the harsh, cold winter months: coffee and biscuits. In a rampage one bystander described as ‘hauntingly similar’ to the Job Offer Riot of 2008 (when the department advertised one minimal pay opening as a …

Christmas time is here,
And so it is also time
For a new haiku.

Word of the week brings you up close and personal with the noble tongue of English. This tongue will be wiggled in places where only the brave dare venture.

In addition to a profound and passionate interest in linguistics, I am equally driven, if not even more so, by a brain-stimulating, soul-shaking fascination towards the North American continent, the U.S. of A. in particular. The questions, research and casual, that arise from a nation so wonderfully contradictory and attached to its past are copious and complex enough to keep me from ever getting a full night’s sleep.
From a “foreigner’s” perspective, it’s always a question …

Which is more important in your everyday life: to understand the language you speak and to recognise the intricate grammatical mechanisms that underlie it or to just speak it and hope that you’ll be understood? Let me rephrase that question. In linguistic terms, do you prize competence over performance? Do you feel that it is justified for you to spend hours on end in school learning the grammar of your native language, when you know …