Fiction and non-fiction literature that teaches profound life lessons and gives you food for thought. These books and quotes will deeply change you. Compilations of interesting and rare words to enrich your vocabulary.
I remember reading Macbeth at school and being instantly beguiled. Here was a world rich with layered meaning, coloured by vivid metaphors and expertly finessed into a captivating moral story. But I didn’t realise at that young age there were words Shakespeare invented that we still use today. I’m not…
George Bernard Shaw wrote: “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” It’s easy to see why. For example, if an American offered biscuits in gravy to a British citizen, they would likely be met with confusion. Likewise, it’s probably not a good idea for Americans to…
I love the English language. The way you can use words to express a thought or paint a picture is something that makes us human. However, some words do us no favors. I’m talking about English slang words. Don’t get me wrong, I use a few of the following examples…
When it comes to commonly mispronounced words, I have a really bad habit. If I don’t know how to pronounce a word, I’ll just skim over it and carry on reading. Then one night, I watched 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy'. There was a scene where he was trying…
Sometimes I want to describe a situation where a person is a complete jerk, but I don’t want to use that particular word. It’s not that I‘m being pretentious, it’s more that the word doesn’t quite fit the circumstances. It was only when I started looking for alternatives that I…
As long as I can remember, I’ve had a love of the English language. I think it comes from my father. Whenever I came across unusual words, he would treat it as an adventure of sorts. ‘Look it up’, he’d say, all the while giving me clues as to the…
The human experience is complex and sometimes you need words with deeper meanings than usual to help you to describe what you’re going through. If you dig a little deeper into language, you’ll find a whole host of words with a deep meaning that can explain all the complicated feelings you have.…
Have you ever wondered if there is a name for something that you love? Well, it turns out there probably is. The word ‘phile’ is a person who has a love or obsession with a particular thing and comes from the ancient Greek word for love ‘phileein’. Moreover, you may…
What is it about fairy tales that captivate the imaginations of children? Could it be that underneath the thin veneer of fiction lies a much darker truth to the tales? Did you know that the most famous fairy tales are based on gruesome real-life stories? Here are just a few:…
