What advantage, I recently asked a trilingual writer, could you possibly find in using such an improvised, confusing, irregular patchwork of a language as English? She replied that this very improvisation, irregularity, and even confusion comes from the vast freedom of expression (and of invention of new expressions) that English offers over other

There’s no doubt that a single inspiring teacher can have a profound impact on a student’s life, but what about the duds? The apoplectic nun, the tapped out fossil, the bitter young man? If there’s deadwood in your educational history, you owe it to yourself to spend some time with John Green.

Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist and one of the world’s foremost writers on language, mind, and human nature.

Among his countless occupations, Stephen Fry acts, writes scripts, performs comedy, writes books, broadcasts on the radio, writes plays, presents television programs, and writes poetry. Words, it seems, have served him well, or, rather, he’s made industrious use of them.

Have you ever dreamed of becoming a word? NPR’s Adam Cole has, and he’s written a song about the immortality that comes from having your name turned into a noun. But as his colleague Robert Krulwich points out, many of the people whose names are now in dictionaries would be horrified.

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, a translation that influenced the development of the English language as much as it did the Christian faith.

Malcolm Coulthard teaches Forensic Linguistics at Aston University, Birmingham. And, in case you’re wondering what this means, forensic linguistics is all about “taking linguistic knowledge, methods and insight, and applying these to the forensic context of law, investigation, trial, punishment and rehabilitation.

Yesterday, the Open University released ‘The History of English in 10 Minutes,’ a witty animated sequence that takes you through 1600 years of linguistic history. The Vikings gave us “give” and “take.” Shakespeare added another 2,000 words and expressions to the mix.

In this hilarious conversation, originally published in the short-lived ECHO Magazine in 1960, Salvador Dalí tries to teach Irish-born actor Edward Mulhare how to articulate English words in a more Dalían way.

Today is National Grammar Day, and maybe it’s a stretch to lump spelling under grammar, but it’s casual Friday here on OC. So we leave you with this. Have a great weekend..