The vocabulary and grammar of spoken South African English are coated in a fine layer of Afrikaans dust. It's been there so long that most of us no longer noticeThe first English lesson I ever gave was in a little language school in a sprawling Taiwanese city. The theme was Fruit, a subject about as…
In Woolwich, a seemingly ordinary woman did something extraordinary. Her humanity may well have saved livesAt the scene of Wednesday's killing in Woolwich, Ingrid Loyau-Kennet got off a bus and spoke to the two killers, seemingly concerned only to keep them calm and stop them hurting anybody else. In photographs taken by other witnesses, we…
A starry time is guaranteed aboard Richard Branson's spaceship, sat next to the Hollywood actor – and it's all for charity, tooA charity bidder at Cannes has won a journey into space sat next to Leonardo DiCaprio, writes The Hollywood Reporter. The lot, which went for €1.2m (£1m) at the annual AmFAR Cinema Against Aids…
Which element is even more dangerous than the most toxic substance known to man?This week's element is actinium, which has the chemical symbol Ac and the atomic number 89. Actinium gets its name from the Greek word for "beam" or "ray".This element is vanishingly rare in the wild -- "vanishingly rare" is a deliberately-chosen descriptor…
What are we to make of a man who left academia more than two decades ago but claims to have solved some of the most intractable problems in physics?There are a lot of open questions in modern physics.Most of the universe is missing, for example. The atoms we know about account for less than 5%…
The spending review is looming and rumours abound of cuts or changes that could damage UK science. The latest concerns the fate of the Medical Research Council.The latest in a long line of government spending reviews, this one covering the period 2015-16, is looming - and many in the science community are getting worried. In…
A glow-in-the-dark cockroach, a harp-shaped carnivorous sponge and the smallest vertebrate on Earth are among the top 10 newly discovered species selected by a global committee of taxonomists
The Apprentice is a very popular TV show despite everyone seeming to hate it. There are interesting psychological reasons for why this is the caseI saw The Apprentice once, many years ago. I didn't like it. I felt it was everything that was wrong with modern culture and the media in general. I vowed never…
A row over using English in universities has blown up in France, where language is at the heart of the national identityThe front page of Libération, one of France's leading dailies, was printed entirely in English on Tuesday. "Let's do it," ran the banner headline. Sounding like a Nike slogan penned by Cole Porter, it…
‘Hobbitses’ and Frankenstein: how pop culture’s words become official | Kory Stamper
Though fantasy and sci-fi have invented hundreds of new words, only a few pass muster to make it into the dictionaryWater cooler conversation at a dictionary company tends towards the odd. A while ago I was chatting with one of my colleagues about our respective defining batches. "I'm not sure," he said, "what to do…
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