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Wordsmith – Test your Guernsey French
Guernsey French is theoretically the mother tongue of our island home, Guernsey. However it is dying out rapidly. So how many of these Guernsey French words do you know (or can guess)? Improve and test your Patois wordpower by matching each of the words below to one of the multiple possible definitions.
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Wordsmith – Test your ‘Celluloid Vocabulary’
Improve and test your wordpower against a list of rather unusual english words.
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Origins of Some English Eponyms : Titch, Platonic, Maudlin, Machiavellian
Eponyms are one of the most fascinating examples of how the English language gains new words. In this article we take a colourful look at the phenomenon that is the eponym gathering together the stories of the people behind the words that have passed into our everyday vocabulary : Titch; Platonic; Maudlin and Machiavellian.
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5 Words Introduced to the English Language by Rudyard Kipling
Shakespeare is often credited as a the most prolific contributor of many of the words we use today in the English language. However he’s not the only venerable writer to do so. Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book, was also a highly prolific contributor, coining and popularising many words and phrases still in use in modern English.
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English Words that Used To Have Vastly Different Meanings To What We Understand Today
How would you rate your vocabulary ? Average; Better than Average ; Exceptional ?
It may not matter how good you think your command of English is because in this article we reveal some surprising revelations about some of the words, you may have thought you had a thorough understanding of, had, in point of fact, some VERY different meanings in the past.
Some Guernsey Place Names & Their Meanings
Place-names are not just arbitrary sounds or quaint words. They had meaning to our remote ancestors who derived them for a reason. They give us insight into their world . In this article we look at just a few of some of Guernsey’s place names and their meanings.
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English Words that Used To Have Vastly Different Meanings To What We Understand Today
How would you rate your vocabulary ? Average; Better than Average ; Exceptional ?
It may not matter how good you think your command of English is because in this article we reveal some surprising revelations about some of the words, you may have thought you had a thorough understanding of, had, in point of fact, some VERY different meanings in the past.
They have a word for that in Greek / Russian / Italien … (things you can’t say in English)
If you look at the statistics around the English language you’d think that we already have more than enough words in this ‘language of the World’. However as much as we like to think of English as the biggest and best of all the World languages, it turns out there’s just some things you can’t express in one word … but you can in other languages. Duende (Spanish); Hygge (Danish); Komorehi (Japanese); Fartlek (Swedish)
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Origins of Some English Eponyms : Farenheit, Colossal, Macabre, Dolby
Eponyms are one of the most fascinating examples of how the English language gains new words. In this article we take a colourful look at the phenomenon that is the eponym gathering together the stories of the people behind the words that have passed into our everyday vocabulary : Farenheit, Colossal, Macabre, Dolby
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Is There Any Truth in the Old Weather saying of “Red Sky at Night Shepherds Delight” ?
Red Sky at Night – Shepherd’s delight. Red Sky in the morning – Sailor’s Warning” – This is one of those venerable bits of meteorological lore and weather experts confirms it to be around 70% reliable. But Why ?
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How Far Back in Time Could an English Speaker Go and Still Understand the Language ?
“How Far Back in Time Could an English Speaker Go and Still Understand the Language ?” In a Nutshell : it would be somewhere between 400 to 500 yrs ago. In order to justify this let’s compare how the speech of ‘English’ speakers sounded in Chaucer’s time, the late 14th Century, with that in the late 16th Century – at the time of Shakespeare.
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What Are the Oldest Words in the English Language Still in Use Today ?
The oldest (known) words in the English language are, as you might expect, “building block words” – words that reflecting key elements in any developing human society. All of the ones we’ve listed in this article originate on or before 1000AD and 900AD.
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Epic One Liners
Do you ever find yourself lost for a reply when someone passes a sarcastic remark or craftily insults you. Well they say “Forewarned is forearmed” so here we list some potential pithy replies to arm yourself with or some canny witticisms you can insert into a conversation.
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What Are The Differences Between British & American English?
There is an old saying that America and Britain are “two nations divided by a common language.” No...
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Insults We Should Bring Back
There’s something deliciously satisfying in a well timed, properly placed insult or barb. In this article we look at a rag tag collection of insulting words and phrases we think should be brought back along with a miscellany of insulting zingers and factlets.
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Origins of Some English Eponyms : Caesarian Section, Bikini, Bayonet, Armageddon
Eponyms are one of the most fascinating examples of how the English language gains new words. In this article we take a colourful look at the phenomenon that is the eponym gathering together the stories of the people behind the words that have passed into our everyday vocabulary : Caesarian Section, Bikini, Bayonet, Armageddon
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Come on You Green Lions ! – GFC Chants in Guernsey French
In this article we share with you some “suitable chants” in Guernsey French, as given to us in a GFC programme in the 2016 season.
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