Modular writing

The Vocabularist - I'll name that place in.....

Name that Place We've seen in recent 'Grammarian' blogs how fluent the English language can be, borrowing words from all & sundry. However, the names of towns, villages, and cities have remained incredibly constant over time. Place…
Business Latin

The Vocabularist - Neither lent nor borrowed be...

More borrowed than lent We like to think of English as the global language. However, its enduring success is largely due to its ability to assimilate and anglicise words from other languages.....a magpie of a language if you will. Consider…
Vocabularist - Food

The Vocabularist - Food to make the world go round

Word derivations Can you guess from which language each of these food names originated? Soup derives from French- C13 soupe Cheese, Latin - cyse Coleslaw, Dutch - kool 'cabbage' + sla 'salad' Tea, Chinese - Mandarin ch'a, C16 Portuguese…
Vocabularist - 2016 word

The Grammarian - 10 commonly misused words....if only you'd learned Latin you'd know!

If only you'd been taught Latin at school.....then you  certainly wouldn't be making so many English language errors. Here are 10 of the most commonly misused English words and their original Latin meaning to stop you from going wrong in the…
Vocabularist - 2016 word

The Vocabularist - Word up for 2016

Word from around the Globe As we've seen, the English language is ever-changing. This is its enduring appeal - its ability to continually reinvent itself unlike the 'Dead' languages of Ancient Greek and Latin. The Oxford University Press…