Monthly Archives: June 2010

Happy Father’s Day. Or Fathers’ Day?

Posted on June 20, 2010 by

My two-year-old son gave me this great father’s day card this morning (I think mummy helped …), but the wording on the front got me wondering about a small grammar point: is it Father’s Day or Fathers’ Day? (That is, … Continue reading →

Posted in Grammar, Just for fun | Tagged , | 20 Comments

More on Tweets and language

Posted on June 18, 2010 by

AP is running a fun story today about Twitter in Japan, which taught me that the verb Tweet (which I’ve written about here) is translated as mumble in Japanese. Here’s the quote of the day: “It’s telling that Twitter was … Continue reading →

Posted in Language and society, Technology | Tagged , | 2 Comments

World Cup language

Posted on June 13, 2010 by

The soccer (US)/football (UK) World Cup may be a great sporting event (I stress may …), but it is an even greater opportunity for linguists, especially since England played the U.S. yesterday. Quite apart from the fact that the two … Continue reading →

Posted in Just for fun | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

“than I” or “than me”?

Posted on June 9, 2010 by

I was just reading through one of the textbooks that we use here at the University of Delaware English Language Institute — Betty Azar‘s mega-best-seller, Understanding and Using English Grammar — when I saw this footnote: In formal English, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Grammar | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Step Up to the TOEFL, Basic Level, is out now!

Posted on June 7, 2010 by

My latest textbook, Step Up to the TOEFL for Students at the Basic Level, has just been released by the University of Michigan Press. You can find details of both the basic and intermediate level books here. It even has … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged , | Leave a comment