Britishisms

A year or so ago, the BBC website published a rather silly article, where they invited readers to write in with the Americanisms which annoyed them most. The BBC published these without any comment, causing a bit of a stir in the (mostly American) linguistics blogosphere. In fact it turned out that many of these 'pet peeves' that people sent in weren't even Americanisms at all, and of the five examples the journalist had opened the article with, only one hadn't started life in Britain.

Perhaps in an attempt to redress the balance slightly, the BBC have recently published an article about Britishisms (also known as Briticisms) that have been creeping into use in North America, and invited American readers to send in examples of Britishisms they had noticed being used. Thirty of these were then published in a follow-up article, with definitions from Oxford English and Collins dictionaries.

Note - a lot of these words are informal or colloquial, and one is downright rude (in the sexual sense), or as one dictionary has it - 'vulgar', and another 'taboo, slang'. But none of them are particularly nasty. Try your hand at using them with four short exercises.

Stative verbs plus

What are stative verbs?

Stative verbs (or state verbs) are a relatively small group of verbs which describe states rather than actions, and so are in contrast to dynamic (or action verbs), which form the vast majority of verbs.

Stative verbs tend to be connected with existence, thoughts, emotions, the senses and possession. They often describe states which last for quite a long time. The most common is the verb be.

The most important thing to remember about stative verbs is that they are not normally used in continuous (progressive) tenses, which are usually used to describe actions or change. However quite a few verbs can be both stative and dynamic, and some stative verbs can even occasionally be used in continuous tenses, so we need to be able to distinguish how they are being used.

Video lesson - classic comedy sketch - Four candles

This sketch is a popular favourite from what was one of the most popular British TV shows of all time - The Two Ronnies. It was placed fifth on Channel 4's list of the fifty greatest comedy sketches of all time, and the sketch has had at least one pub named after it: The Four Candles in Oxford.

Verb patterns - new page

Verb patterns - verb + ing form, verb + infinitive, verb + that clause

I've put together what I think is a fairly comprehensive table of structures that can come after just over 400 different verbs. There's also a feature where you can look up a verb and see a short list of its possible structures.

One of these days I'll get round to doing some exercises on verb patterns. Meanwhile this should help as a reference.

And as this is for reference I've done it as a page rather than a post. Just click here or on 'Verb patterns' in the list of pages above.

Song exercise - Don't you want me - Human League - prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs

This exercise originally appeared in a post about prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs. I thought I would make it more 'visible' by giving it its own post. If you want to work on recognising the differences between these word classes, the original post is here.

Vocab quiz - sounds and the human voice

A multiple choice quiz to test your knowledge of the vocabulary of sounds. Click on an option number to select your choice.

Web tools - IPA code generator

Using IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols

Probably the ideal way of using IPA symbols on a web page is to use images. But that can be a hassle. On Blogger, you would have to upload something like forty images.

For me, at least, the use of special HTML character codes is an acceptable and much more convenient alternative. The only symbol missing is the long vowel sign, but a colon does almost as well. Here's what it looks like:

creation	/krɪ'eɪʃn/
dispatch	/dɪs'pæʧ/
parakeet	/'pærekɪ:t/
agency	/'eɪʤənsɪ/
butter	/'bʌtə/
television	/tele'vɪʒn/
theatre	/'θɪəte(r)/
cure	/'kjʊə(r)/

The only problem is that you have to look up the codes and enter them individually. I can't be bothered with all that, so I devised this keyboard to speed up the process. First type in your symbols, optionally using the apostrophe to show stress. You can also bracket letters which only some people pronounce. There are two keyboards, one by sound type and a sort of (Q)werty one - use the 'Switch keyboard' button to toggle between them.