Love To Learn

Today this blog celebrates my wife's language school being open for one year. Love To Learn opened a year ago today and has been hugely successful and I am so proud of Sally and everyone involved. Mainly specialising in Study Holidays for foreign students to come over to England and learn the language (and culture by staying with host families) it has been so popular bookings have had to be postponed for next year because they are so busy. Bookings extend into 2009. They also teach other languages including Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

So, this list is inspired by the English languages and is a list of the top ten most commonly used nouns in the English language, occording to Oxford University Press researchers, taken from an BBC online article I found from last year. The results are quite surprising. Time takes the top spot, work made number 15 but rest and play didn't even feature in the top 100. That says a lot about today's society.

The top 10 most commonly used nouns in English:

1. Time
2. Person
3. Year
4. Way
5. Day
6. Thing
7. Man
8. World
9. Life
10. Hand

Hyphen or not?

It seems the internet and text messaging is making it's mark on the English dictionary. Or rather, it's losing a mark; the hyphen to be precise. I discovered an article on the BBC web site which talks about 16,000 words that have lost their hyphens in the latest edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, changing them into either a single word or two seperate words. Here are some of the previously hyphend words that have changed:

Becoming two words:

1. Fig leaf
2. Hobby horse
3. Ice cream
4. Pin money
5. Pot belly
6. Test tube

Becoming one word:

1. Leapfrog
2. Pigeonhole
3. Bumblebee
4. Chickpea
5. Crybaby
6. Leapfrog
7. Logjam

Talk Like a Pirate

Ahoy, me beauties. Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. This be set up by them fine harty mates, John Baur and Mark Summers, at talklikeapirate.com. I be offrin this list from thar, to help all you scurvy land lubbers who ain't got the noggins to grab y'selves a wench.

Top Ten Pickup lines for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day
(We [the guys from TLaP web site] came up with these in an effort to interest The Other Dave (Letterman) in TLAPD. His staff liked 'em, but alas, his show was"dark" the week of Sept. 19.)

10 . Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?
9. Have ya ever met a man with a real yardarm?
8. Come on up and see me urchins.
7. Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.
6. I'd love to drop anchor in your lagoon.
5. Pardon me, but would ya mind if fired me cannon through your porthole?
4. How'd you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?
3. Ya know, darlin’, I’m 97 percent chum free.
2. Well blow me down?

And the number one pickup line for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day is
1. Prepare to be boarded.

I be planning to get me shipmates at work speaking like this today. Please visit t'web site to pick up more of the vernacular.

Words that sound rude

This is a list of words that have different meanings in American English compared with British English (or vice versa), that sound a bit rude.

1. fanny


2. bum


3. ass


4. buns


5. cock-up

This thread was inspired by the wonderful blog Separated by a Common Language and the childish game of looking up rude words in the dictionary.