Higgs boson metaphors

You've got to use language to explain science – and when science is all 'quantum' and weird at the fundamental level, you've got to use metaphors. 

Note: 'molasses' is American for 'treacle'.

Higgs boson metaphors as clear as molasses - The Boston Globe
http://bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/07/14/metaphors-and-higgs-boson/UjdsEySmG63XIAcNN7LNSO/story.html

Bill Nash, "Vakum clenere"

This'll be funny when you've studied some Middle English at A2, I promise.

http://ajohnny.tumblr.com/post/8320439473/bill-nash-vakum-clenere

Thirty words English got from India

English does love to 'borrow' words, especially from places where there is a colonial history.

Thirty words English got from India
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18796493

How to Find Verbs

Trouble figuring out what words count as 'verbs' in a sentence? This page gives some examples, with notes and how-to suggestions.

Not all the terminology here matches what we use in AS Language study, but the ideas are fine.

GRAMMAR, HOW TO FIND VERBS KEY

Student magazines 2012

The second of our student magazines is now up and available on Wordpress - the puntastically-title, Olympic-themed 'Jog On' magazine, which accompanies hard-hitting Olympiskeptical 'Stop:Watch'. Linkage below.


Jog On | The greatest WordPress.com site in all the land!

Stop:Watch | A Publication created by Park English Language Students

Well done to all our budding journalists and cheers to guest editors Corey and Lewis of SQ!

The Magazine Activity Team at Work...

Notes, transcripts, earphones and blazing hot copy. Note product placement of SQ. :)

As a Linguist…

Interesting running commentary from a linguistic researcher, with all sortsof puzzles and corners of language under discussion. Nice style model for blog posts too.

As a Linguist… | Observations on language, literature, and other interesting phenomena

The virtual linguist

The virtual linguist has bitesize commentaries on language items in the news and elsewhere.  Worth a browse.

Sound Comparisons

Oh my goodness. More accent material than you can shake a schwa at. This site collects pronunciations and full phonetic transcriptions of a range of words from accents around the UK and the world, in hyperlinekd and clickable charts. /ɔ:səm/.

http://www.soundcomparisons.com/

Visualizing English Word Origins

Colour-coding texts to show their etymology. Love this. 

Ideas Illustrated » Blog Archive » Visualizing English Word Origins
http://ideasillustrated.com/blog/2012/04/01/visualizing-english-word-origins/

"Humor" for Writers

Many of these are simply gormless. Some are ripped off from stand-up routines. Some are genuinely interesting questions. Some have genuinely enlightening answers. The problem is, which is which?

Humor for Writers – English Language Quirks
http://www.epublishabook.com/2012/06/10/humor-for-writers-english-language-quirks/

Park Language Twitter feed

You can now follow a Twitter feed for Park Language at @parklanguage: https://twitter.com/#!/parklanguage

As with the Facebook page and the blog, some things will turn up everywhere, some things will be just on one channel. I’ll figure out a working practice as we go. Comments, retweets, @mentions of stuff you find are all welcome.