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A 1960s schools experiment that created a new alphabet

Throughout my life, my mum has always been a big reader. She was in three or four book clubs at the same time. She’d devour whatever texts my siblings and I were studying in school, handwrite notes for our lunchboxes and write in her diary every night. Our fridge door was a revolving display of word-of-the-day flashcards. Despite this, she also was and remains, by some margin, the worst speller I have met. By the time I was in primary school, she was already asking me to proofread her work emai

The 1960s schools experiment that created a whole new alphabet

Throughout my life, my mum has always been a big reader. She was in three or four book clubs at the same time. She’d devour whatever texts my siblings and I were studying in school, handwrite notes for our lunchboxes and write in her diary every night. Our fridge door was a revolving display of word-of-the-day flashcards. Despite this, she also was and remains, by some margin, the worst speller I have met. By the time I was in primary school, she was already asking me to proofread her work emai

Introduction to Indian English

Content In less than 200 years since its formal introduction as part of a nascent and westernized education system, English has grown to be the medium through which the people of India communicate with the world, and often with one another. In large parts of a country with several major languages, it vies with Hindi—the most commonly used Indian language—as the spoken language of choice. There is a range of ability from a mere smattering of words, to some amount of rudimentary communication, to

‘Squid Game’ VIP Actor Speaks Out on That Awful English Voiceover

Squid Game season three has been met with decidedly mixed reviews, with most fans rating it as the blockbuster hit’s weakest installment. That ending didn’t help things, but neither did the enhanced presence of the show’s most annoying characters: the billionaire VIPs who spectate the games from behind glass and gilded masks. Season three saw the group exerting a more active influence on the competition. Early on, they disguise themselves as pink guards and massacre the unfortunate losers durin

Why English doesn't use accents

Portrait of Jean Miélot (after 1456), Jean le Tavernier Canterbury, AD 1105 The cold of the stone floor in the scriptorium creeps up through Godwin’s boots. He pays it no mind. Before him lies a copy of the Chronicle, just arrived from the old capital of Winchester. In it is written the history of the English people. His people. Today, his job is to make another copy. No difficult task for Godwin, or any monk. But Abbot Robert will want to inspect the work before vespers. Abbot Robert. A No

How to get started with Old English poetry

The Shipwreck (1805), Joseph Mallord William Turner Most people who know anything at all about Old English poetry will be aware of the existence of Beowulf. Perhaps they will even have read it. But far fewer will be aware of the 90% of Old English poetry that is not Beowulf. It’s a shame, because the back catalogue of Old English poetry — the deep cuts — are well worth reading. And, in general, these poems are much easier (and shorter) to read than Beowulf. The entire corpus of surviving poet

Aesop in Words of One Syllable

In the 19th Century, British and American children’s literature evolved from puritanical moral and religious instruction to delightfully imaginative tales meant to awaken a sense of wonder. But morality and imagination could certainly thrive together. Æsop’s Fables in Words of One Syllable is an excellent example of this. The ancient Greek storyteller Aesop may or may not have existed, and he may or may not have written the hundreds of morality tales attributed to him. Yet his stories have been

The ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Team Had to Fight to Keep One of the ‘Final Fantasy’ Set’s Best References

Magic: The Gathering‘s new Final Fantasy set is an absolute love letter to the beloved RPG series, with hundreds of cards making a flavorful nod to their source material in one way or another. But one of the most fun references in a set filled with them almost didn’t make it in—thanks to a quibble between Wizards of the Coast and Square Enix’s translation teams. In a fascinating new article about translating the Final Fantasy set for its English and Japanese-language versions shared on the offi