Writers and language geeks inherit a ranking system of sorts: verbs good, adjectives bad, nouns sadly unavoidable. Verbs are action, verve! “I ate the day / Deliberately, that its tang / Might quicken ...

As a linguist, I’ve lost count of how many times I have been asked what I think of the various language-learning apps. The truth is that I don’t use them. But of late I have been watching my daughter, ...

The word ‘plural’ comes from the Old French ‘plurel’ which means ‘more than one’. A noun is a word used to identify something.There are a lot of nouns.There are many patterns to look out for when you ...

With the advent of social media, words, rather nouns like 'inbox' and 'bookmark' are now being used as verbs. Read on for more such gems... The English language is constantly evolving, reason why many ...

Collective nouns may seem like quirky ways to describe groups, but 500 years ago, they were your ticket to the in-crowd. Most collective nouns, or “terms of venery,” were coined during the 15th ...

All nouns in Spanish have a gender. They are either masculine or they are feminine. Every noun is either one or the other and you just have to learn them. But there are some clues. Un problema is a ...

"Words That Start with B"! The English language is rich and diverse, and starting with the very first letter of the alphabet, 'B' offers a fascinating journey into its vast vocabulary. Whether you're ...

I woke yesterday morning to an e-mail from an editor at a London newspaper asking whether, as the author of a book about the world of competitive Scrabble, I had any thoughts on the news that "the ...