Reports

Some words charm the ear with pizzazz and others thud without melody, but can word sounds exude other qualities: size, shape, or even disgust? Enter the world of sound symbolism!

Will you be celebrating International Tea Day on May 21? From a word lover’s point of view, it’s a good time to reflect on the impressive history of our daily caffeine fixes. Take a quick coffee break, then, and savour these delicious, stimulating stories of the world’s favourite hot drinks.

This instalment of Language Matters looks into why many historical figures’ names are translated, and how cultural and linguistic contexts can influence personal name choices.

This Word Stories instalment examines the way sounds can get switched around in words—sometimes forever—in a linguistic process called metathesis.

This instalment of Language Matters does a deep dive on jargon. Learn about the development of industry-specific terminology and when it should be used (or avoided!)

This Word Stories instalment shows how ancient religious and political revolutions gave us the modern days of the week.

This Language Matters instalment spotlights a particularly iconic example of trees in linguistics: the syntax trees used to model sentence formation.

This Word Stories instalment shines a spotlight on common words related to cosmology.