A Brief History of English, with Chronology by Suzanne Kemmer is one of many articles at Words in English, a website designed as "a resource for those who want to learn more about this fascinating language – its history as a language, the origins of its words, and its current modern characteristics."
posted on Oct 4, 2008 - View this thread

Fan-diddly-damn-tastic! The whirly-twirly-leapy-flippy world of nonce words. When something is crappy, do you ever yearn for synonyms such as crapitudinous, crapfestacular, and craposcopic? (via ADS-L)
posted on Oct 1, 2008 - View this thread

Japes for Owre Tymes is a blog that translates one newspaper comic strip a day into Middle English. "Why? Because it can..." If you want to try reading the translated strips but need a bit of help here's a Middle English dictionary.
posted on Sep 23, 2008 - View this thread

Ed Rondthaler on english pronounciation. (Quicktime Video)
posted on Sep 6, 2008 - View this thread

English, Motherduffers—do you speak it?
posted on Aug 27, 2008 - View this thread

Puzzled by sugary J-Pop bands and their eccentric (and failed) TV shows? Frustrated and confused by the complexity of Japanese and want to see what your inchoate blustering looks like from the other side? Then join "perennially unpopular" gaijin celebrity Thane Camus (grand-nephew of Albert Camus), as he walks a class of fellow pop star clichés through an endearingly awkward English conversation class.
posted on Aug 21, 2008 - View this thread

The 100 Most Common Words In The English Language

see how many you can guess in 5 minutes
posted on Aug 6, 2008 - View this thread

The 10 Greatest Misspelled Tattoos, according to The L Magazine.
posted on Jul 17, 2008 - View this thread

The Grammar Curmudgeon makes up for all of those snarky grammar comments we refrain from posting.
posted on Jun 1, 2008 - View this thread

Did you know the BBC has extensive pages on learning English?
posted on May 28, 2008 - View this thread

It's what's for breakfast. But, according to the Times, anyone with a college degree is too intelligent to eat a fry-up.
posted on Apr 17, 2008 - View this thread

The Most Horrible English Words
posted on Mar 28, 2008 - View this thread

"Speak English" sign at cheesesteak shop not discriminatory. A split three-member panel of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations ruled that a sign in Genos Steaks the South Philadelphia cheesesteak shop did not convey a message that service would be refused to non-English speakers.
posted on Mar 20, 2008 - View this thread

Stand and Deliver! Dick Turpin was the quintessential highwayman, perhaps not as flamboyant as "Swift Nick" Nevison or as low profile as Jerry Abershaw, but legends abound about his exploits. He was buried (several times) in York after throwing himself off the gallows. 'Course, he's got his own heavy metal band, and his own swashbuckling t.v. adventure series (from 1979 to 1982) in which breathless maids said with heaving breasts "Dick 's been taken" (but of course, you can't hold Dick for long).
posted on Dec 21, 2007 - View this thread

Over the years millions of children have been introduced to a foreign language by Big Muzzy ^[wiki], a friendly, green, clock-eating monster. Here's the complete British English version of Muzzy in Gondoland on YouTube: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.
posted on Dec 16, 2007 - View this thread

Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to seven introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University:Astronomy, English, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Religious Studies: a full set of class lectures produced in high-quality video, syllabi, suggested readings, and problem sets.
posted on Dec 14, 2007 - View this thread

The Imagined Village [promoting an album too but plenty of interesting free stuff] Several luminaries of a now more globalised British music scene reinterpret the folk heritage and pose questions about a modern English identity. There's Benjamin Zephaniah's version of Tam Lyn and a retelling of Hard Times in Old England; even our American cousins get in on the act, for instance remixes like Doghouse Riley's doo-wop Cold Hailey Rainy Night. There's also a few thinky pieces explaining what it's all about.
posted on Nov 17, 2007 - View this thread

In the 19th century, English author Favell Mortimer wrote several books describing various countries to children. Apparently she didn't travel much.
posted on Oct 2, 2007 - View this thread

Increase your pronunciation skills and your vocabulary by checking out 6000 English words recorded by a native speaker. Not enough for you? Then would you believe 20,000 English words recorded by a native speaker?
posted on Sep 25, 2007 - View this thread

Single Japanese Male. Rather than yammering in Meta about what "best of the web" means, let's have an object-lesson in astonishing obscure excellence. Introducing every last one of you to the Virtual Wilbye Consort.
posted on Aug 4, 2007 - View this thread

100 words every high school graduate should know (according to the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries).
posted on Jun 13, 2007 - View this thread

"The old, mean man" vs. "The mean old man." Here's an aspect of English (and other languages) I've never thought of before. If you're using a string of adjectives, there's a natural order for them to appear in: "opinion :: size :: age :: shape :: color :: origin :: material :: purpose". (Although I find "old, mean," due to it's strange order, sort of striking.) [more info: 1, 2, 3]
posted on May 19, 2007 - View this thread

Modern Thai fiction, in English et plus en français.
posted on Mar 26, 2007 - View this thread

Some movie villains aren't necessarily bad, they're just accented that way. But what criteria do we use to determine a truly, uniquely bad film accent? Obviously, it helps if an actor or movie annoys you to begin with, but some bad accents are simply indisputably painful to watch. Kind of like a mashup of everything in The Speech Accent Archive with a little bit of Received Pronounciation thrown in here and there. Yes it's true, even the average American enjoys trying to rock a ridiculously fake British tone once in a while (there are dialects?). But believe it or not, there are average people in this world actually trying to learn how to sound American too! OK well, on second thought, it's more likely that they're just trying to sound less "foreign" while they're here so we don't mock them.

Now here's the obligatory Fun Quiz portion of the post: what American accent do YOU have? Previously.
posted on Mar 24, 2007 - View this thread

BBC News: "Gee, I just love your accent." The American nation may be more wary of crossing borders, but their love affair with the British accent continues unabated. Despite the fact that there are multiple variants therein, and what may be considered a "low-class" accent in the UK is still considered a "high-class" posh accent in the US. Naturally, the Brits will play this up to the hilt - and it may help in getting them jobs, credibility, Oscars and Emmys, by no less an authority than Stephen Fry.
posted on Mar 21, 2007 - View this thread

...Historians teach that they are mostly descended from different peoples: the Irish from the Celts and the English from the Anglo-Saxons who invaded from northern Europe and drove the Celts to the country’s western and northern fringes. But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are edging toward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people that have remained in the majority, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans. The implication that the Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh have a great deal in common with each other, at least from the geneticist’s point of view, seems likely to please no one.

28-year-old Tomomi Kunishige has created a new form of Japanese calligraphy, dubbed Eikanji (literally 'english kanji'), which uses the Roman alphabet to represent Japanese characters. Even if you don't study Japanese her calligraphy is still worth admiring, though it must be said that some of the paintings involve a fairly relaxed usage. (taken from Mainichi Daily News)
posted on Jan 31, 2007 - View this thread

With malice towards all, Khushwant Singh has been one of the most ascerbic tongues in the English language, particularly in his editorship of the venerable yet now deceased Illustrated Weekly of India. Filled with Goan cartoonist Mario Miranda's stunning illustrations, short stories, photojournalism, scholarly articles and humor, I miss the touch of Indian society it kept for desis abroad.
posted on Nov 11, 2006 - View this thread

Webcameron. David Cameron, leader of the Conservative party in the UK, reaches out to the Youtube generation.
posted on Sep 30, 2006 - View this thread

St Custard's is an English preparatory school set in bracing downland country. Find out more about its teachers, the headmaster and his predecessors, the discipline, and its star pupil Nigel Molesworth. As a bonus you can find out more about how Kennedy captured the gerund and led it into captivity. If you're still confused, click here, here and here for the background to Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle's satire on a certain part of 1950s England.
posted on Sep 16, 2006 - View this thread

Lit majors - English prof. drops knowledge
posted on Jul 25, 2006 - View this thread

More Shakespeare than you can shake a spear at.
posted on Jul 17, 2006 - View this thread

The Phrontistery presents A Compendium of Lost Words
posted on Jul 1, 2006 - View this thread

The Routes of English on BBC Radio 4 tells the story of spoken english. If that's not enough for you, you can test your knowledge, learn about the spread of the language, play games (Do you know where 'ketchup' originates?) Check out the Q&A. Learn about Churchill's roar. Then check out the related links. Most sound clips are in RealPlayer format. Real Alternative here.
posted on Mar 28, 2006 - View this thread

Aargh!
posted on Jan 7, 2006 - View this thread

Webctionary Using typography as comic art. Portuguese version by the same creator.
posted on Dec 31, 2005 - View this thread

The Plain English Campaign Awards have been published again. No Rumsfeldian "known unknowns" this time, just this from Rhodri Morgan:
“The only thing which isn’t up for grabs is no change and I think it’s fair to say it’s all to play for, except for no change.”
The complete shortlist (word doc) and BBC report. 2003 awards previously
posted on Dec 13, 2005 - View this thread

The Elements of Style, the classic writing manual by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, has been produced as a musical featuring the Omit Needless Words Orchestra.
posted on Nov 1, 2005 - View this thread

A Sub by any other name.... Professor Vaux has put together a little survey of American as she is spoke. The survey covers a myriad of areas and the results wind up on some really interesting maps. It's on going, so feel free to take the challenge
posted on Sep 23, 2005 - View this thread

International Dialects of English Archive
posted on Sep 6, 2005 - View this thread

English as she is spoke : Infamous as the world's most ludicrously inept foreign phrasebook, the misbegotten work of Jose da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino was revived in a new edition by the Collins Library in March 2002. Some background.
posted on Sep 4, 2005 - View this thread

Language Corner by Columbia Journalism Review, is incredibly helpful when it comes to learning the English language's subtle nuances and rather obvious rules.
posted on Aug 29, 2005 - View this thread

A picture of English nouns is a map of 33,000 English nouns. Each tiny rectangle corresponds to a noun. The color of the rectangle has been assigned a color, based on an internet image search for that noun. The words are clustered so that similar words are near each other. Gallery. (Java required)
posted on Aug 14, 2005 - View this thread

The Origins and Common Usage of British Swear-words.
posted on Jul 4, 2005 - View this thread

What Does That Mean explains what it means to be having a blue or to be loaded for bear. This is a newish wiki site, so could use some more content. Me? I'm off to get something from the chilly bin and then I may add some regional idioms of my own...
posted on Jun 20, 2005 - View this thread

According to Stanley Fish , "Students can't write clean English sentences because they are not being taught what sentences are." The solution: make them invent their own language. After a generation that privileged content to the exclusion of form, is the pendulum swinging back the other way?
posted on May 31, 2005 - View this thread

Stories from a prison in South Korea, told by an English teacher imprisoned for teaching without a license. Punishment: deportation. But if a prisoner can't collect wages due, then the prisoner can't buy a plane ticket and stays jailed, where the prisoner can't make money, until such time as the prisoner can afford a plane ticket, ad infinitum. Part one. "The massive Mongolian sings beautifully. A sad falsetto—I imagine it to be about missing a faraway homeland of vast, green pastures, endless fertile grasslands, deserts and broad skies." Part two. "He should really go to a hospital outside of the detention center, but…he would have to pay for any medical treatment outside.…If he spends any money on medical bills he would have less money for buying his airplane ticket home. So he must go untreated."
posted on May 18, 2005 - View this thread

Learn Brit-Speak British Airways wants to help Americans understand "Brit-Speak". Of course you've always wanted to know what pants, snog, squiz and lurgy mean, but as a marketing strategy? annoying flash interface, but all 72 items inside
posted on May 7, 2005 - View this thread

Learning English with the CBC. Learn about Canadian history and improve your English skills with a series of audio and video clips, as well as quizzes and exercises. Topics include Terry Fox: A Marathon of Hope, Arctic Winter Games: The Olympics of the North, and Maple Syrup: A Taste of Canada, among others.
posted on Apr 25, 2005 - View this thread

A tool that turns English into computer code? Maybe someday. Metafor is a code visualizer from researchers at MIT which produces non-executable (but meaningfully-structured) code out of natural language. Here is a quicktime demonstration of what it looks like in action. Here's the paper as a PDF.
posted on Mar 25, 2005 - View this thread