Interesting Facts

One of Britain's biggest banks,  HSBC, is going to offer its customers an extra 10  gender neutral options for people who do not wish to be identified by gender. (Usually you get the choice of    "Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms", but they have now added the following titles: Mx (pronounced "mix" or "mux") Ind (an abbreviation of individual) M (unspecified, but a bit James Bond really) Misc (an abbreviation of miscellaneous) Mre (an abbreviation for "mystery") Msr (represents a combination of Miss/Sir) Myr (unspecified) Pr (prounced "per". An abbreviation of person) Sai (pronounced "sigh") Ser (pronounced "sair") I like Ser.  Which do you prefer? ) 

An advert for Nurofen painkillers, has been banned in the UK for falsely claiming it targets specific types of pain. (The Advertising Standards Authority received complaints about TV adverts that suggested that Nurofen could target back pain. In one ad which showed a woman experiencing back pain, a voiceover said: “Just a single dose of Nurofen Joint and Back provides you with constant targeted pain relief for up to eight hours.” In an interesting use of language RB UK Commercial, which owns the Nurofen brand, said the advert did not state or imply specific pain could be targeted and that it was “disappointed” with the ruling. A spokesperson said: “Nurofen pain-specific products were introduced to provide easy navigation of pain-relief options for consumers experiencing a specific type of pain ." Please note, they didn't use the word "targeted pain relief". Actually the term painkiller is misleading.)

According to a story in the Daily Mail, primary school children in Dundee are having to sign a 17-clause contract before they can play football in the playground. (The 17 clauses are as follows:- I will not deliberate foul tackles I will not carry issues off the pitch to class or after school I will not argue an agreed out or an agreed foul I will not hog the ball  (They actually wrote hogg here.) I will not name call or tease I will not chant, use banter or wahoys! I will not gloat or boast I will not, if scorekeeping be a sore loser and will congratulate the other team I will not elbow or shoulder barge I will not deliberately chase on the pitch or swipe the ball from people I will not cheat I will keep up with my school work I will demonstrate sportsmanlike conduct and apologising I will use timeouts for myself as individual players if needed I will use supportive and encouraging language I will take turns in position I will ensure teams are fair and no swap...

Online review site Trip Advisor has banned all reviews written in Welsh. (Trip Advisor is arguably the world's largest travel website, and supports languages from all around the world, but they have banned all submissions in Welsh.  Allegedly, the ancient Celtic language, one of the oldest European languages with over half a million speakers in the UK, breaches their sites strict language guidelines.  Trip Advisor said that they were unable to integrate Welsh into their moderation and review policies. In other words no one speaks Welsh there. Surely some enterprising Welsh speaker could set up their own review site.)

If you ever needed proof that remembering lists of words doesn't mean you can speak the language, here it is. 48-year-old New Zealander, Nigel Richards, is the French-language world Scrabble champion, but he can't speak French. (He is 3 times world Scrabble champion, 5 times US champion, and has won 12 titles in the King’s Cup championship in Bangkok, but became world Champion of Francophone Scrabble, after memorizing all possible words in the official French scrabble dictionary, with two to 10 letters. Throw those vocabulary lists away.)

There is a language taking over the world, and it isn't English; it's Emoji. (In a survey conducted by TalkTalk Mobile, 8 in 10 people use emoji symbols in emails and text messages, and 72% of British 18 to 25-year-olds said they found it easier to put their feelings across in emoji icons than in text. The 10 most popular emojis are as follows:- 1- Smiley Face 2- Crying with laughter 3- Love heart 4- Blushing 5- Thumbs up 6- Cheeky face 7- Blowing a kiss 8- Winking face 9- Confused 10- See no evil monkey However, different language speakers have their own preferences:- Canadians seemingly enjoy using the smiling poop emoji. The French use four times as many heart emojis than other languages. Flower and plant emojis, particularly the rose, are used at more than 4 times the average rate by Arabic speakers. Russian speakers use 3 times as many romantic emojis. Australians like emojis with a...

Before you shoot me down in flames and say that < 3  is not a word, read this:- The heart emoji "< 3" has been chosen as the word of the year in the 15th annual survey of the English language by the Global Language Monitor. (If  you are new to these emoji or emoticons, each emoji represents an emotion, expression, state of mind, person, place, or thing.  There are now some 722 characters, with another 250 being made available in 2016, and 37 more due for approval in June 2015. Social media and the internet is driving the emoji language forward, with symbols like hashtag #, photobomb - gatecrashing a selfie, bae - a term of endearment for one’s object of desire, “bash” tag - using a hashtag to undermine your frenemies and clickbait - a link you just have to click on - all making it into the top 10 words. On a sad note, the world’s top phrase was “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” chanted by demonstrators against the police shooting of an unarmed black man in Fergus...

You've heard of the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots, well say hello to the Cornish. (Not the pasty, the people. Cornwall has won recognition as a national minority. Flag - St Piran Language - Cornish Nationality - Cornish In the census of 2011, 84,000 people declaree themselves “Cornish”, but only 557 people claim that the Celtic dialect is their main language, although there are now dual-language street signs throughout the county. I don't think you can call yourself Cornish, if you can't speak Cornish. There should be a test.) Oh look!  There is! Can you tell the difference between Dothraki and Cornish? http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/dothraki-or-cornish-can-you-tell-the-difference

According to scientists from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the English language is descended from ancient Turkey. (They go even further to say that French, German and Hindi - originated up to 9,500 years ago in western Asia. The scientists traced the origin of languages classed as Indo-European to Anatolia, an ancient region of western Asia which covers most of modern Turkey.)

I was shocked when I read that one of Italy's leading universities - the Politecnico di Milano - is going to switch to the English language. (The university believes that if it remains Italian-speaking it risks isolation and will be unable to compete as an international institution. Giovanni Azzone, the university's rector said, "We strongly believe our classes should be international classes - and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language." I guess it would be cool to study in Milan, but it also means it becomes just one more English speaking university amongst many.) Source

According to a survey conducted by The Museum of London Cockney Rhyming Slang is dying out. (Many people did not know the "dickie birds" (words), and the meaning of once-popular phrases like "pig's ear" (beer), "bacon and eggs" (legs) and "bricks and mortar" (daughter) have been lost, "apples and pears" (stairs) was the most well-known Cockney phrase (78%) but only 9% of respondents said they used it in the last six months. "Porky pies" (lies) ranked as the most commonly used expression - but only 13% said it had come out of their "north and south" (mouth) In fact other forms of slang are taking over and words like "OMG," "epic fail" and "wicked" currently rule the London lexicon.) Source

Researchers at Harvard University and Google have found that the English language has expanded by 8,500 words a year in the new millennium and now stands at 1,022,000 words. ( But nearly half of the new words are not included in any dictionary and are dubbed lexical "dark matter". They are either slang or invented jargon.  Which is why we have the Urban Dictionary.)   Source

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has banned 1,600 words it deems to be obscene. (The words and phrases banned include 1,109 English words and another 568 in Pakistan’s national Urdu language, which in itself is interesting - do Pakistani people prefer swearing in English? (I know they do in Wales.) Now, I realise that there is a ban list on the forum, but it's limited to indecent language, and there certainly aren't 1,600 words on the list! In addition my list doesn't include everyday words like “idiot” (try imbecile) or “barf" (try throw up - I'd like to see them ban throw and up).) Here's a list of the banned words - Parental Advisory.

According to a survey by hotels.com, 2 in 3 Britons cannot say anything in another language. (Now we're not talking about being able to speak a foreign language here, we are talking about the ability to say and understand one word in another language. And it's even more embarrassing to read that one fifth of those asked were even sure of what ‘bonjour’ means! (Sorry Xeb, Celine, Eflish and co.). One third – 34 per cent – said they were willing to make an attempt at speaking a foreign language while on holiday. One fifth (19 per cent) did not know the meaning of the French word for hello, one of the most recognisable foreign greetings in the world. And 63 per cent had no idea what the Dutch word ‘goedemorgen’ meant, despite the obvious similarities to our own ‘good morning’.  (Sorry April, Will and co.) Believe it or not, it is compulsory for all UK pupils to study a foreign language up to the age of 14 and French, German and Spanish are all on the national curr...

The young nation of South Sudan has chosen English as its official language. (Currently about 150 different languages are spoken in the South. Welcome to the club guys.)

What has Shakespeare got to do with the Olympic games? Well, next year, as part of the 2012 Olympics arts programme, the South Sudanese Kwoto Theatre Company will perform Shakespeare's Cymbeline in Juba Arabic at the Globe theatre in London. (In fact, beginning on 21 April 2012, the Globe will present a programme of multi-lingual Shakespeare productions for the London 2012 festival. 37 international companies will present every one of Shakespeare's plays in a different language over six weeks. So there you have the link. And talking of links, you can read more about it here:- http://globetoglobe.shakespearesglobe.com/)

"Hok-oo" means "watch out, other monkeys about!" in monkey language. (I know you don't need to know this to improve your English, but you'll thank me if you ever meet a troupe of monkeys.)

According to Jakob Uszkoreit, a senior engineer at Google, over 100,000 American students take the National Latin Exam every year. (With the launch of an additional Latin function into Google translate, it seems we can now read those ancient texts and even listen to Latin pronunciation. So who says it's a dead language?)

The Na'vi language spoken in James Cameron's new film Avatar took four years to write and develop. (I wonder how many people have learnt it.  After all lots of people have learnt Klingon.) 

 Hamlet has been translated into Klingon. ("To be or not to be" translates into "taH pagh taHbe".  Now you might think this is a useless fact, and you'd be right.)