News podcasts are a very useful resource, especially for those who like to keep well-informed. In this post youโll find a short selection of those, each only a few minutes long. As with other podcasts, youโll be able to access all of them easily in your podcast app, or by following the links provided here.
English words of the year 2021
Each year, lexicographers1 working for prominent publishing companies announce a word that, in their judgment, marked the previous year. Their choice usually tells us something about the state of affairs2 in the world we live in and the way language reflects it. In this post, weโll look at the English words of the year 2021. …
The essential snowy weather vocabulary
It's been claimed that the Inuit languages of North America have over 50 different words for snow. You may be surprised to learn that English comes pretty close: if we include all the regional variants and dialects, the list gets pretty long! But don't worry, in this post we'll only look at the most common …
The man behind the word ‘mesmerizing’
There are many words in English that we can use to say that something looks attractive: from 'pretty' and 'beautiful' to strong adjectives such as 'stunning', 'fascinating' or 'captivating'. In this post we'll look at the interesting background of another one of those, namely 'mesmerizing'. Firstly, what exactly does this adjective mean? The Cambridge Dictionary …
