Reports

This Word Stories instalment demonstrates how linguistic creativity sometimes thrives on bad weather, exploring the origins of rain cats and dogs, perfect storm and steal someone’s thunder.

From exposing exposé to pulling apart portmanteau, this Language Matters article uncovers French-looking English words with a murky relationship to modern French.

This report tours some intersecting orbits of the astronomical, the astrological and the mythological.

Some years become shorthand for an event, era or mood. Let’s look at some of the most symbolically potent years in the English-speaking world.

This Word Stories instalment shows how the colourful history of the Irish has enriched everyday English, in ways great and small.

This instalment of Language Matters flips through linguistic features of modern brand messaging, from social media snark to eyebrow-raising grammar.

In 153 BCE, the Roman Senate changed the beginning of the year from March 15 to January 1 in an administrative emergency… and never changed it back! This report shows how forgotten laws can shape the way we see and talk about our world.

Why does it take so long for some ideas to get named and why are some still nameless? Find out how neologisms, sociolects and social contagion give a dazzling newness to old ideas.