A Supertext tribute to David Bowie
David Bowie released what was to be his last album last week to coincide with his 69th birthday, before sadly passing away on monday. We take a look back at his influence on Berlin and a few tunes that can be hummed in German.
A literary perspective into the world of fortune cookies, a staple of every Chinese restaurant in the USA and many other parts of the world, though funnily enough, not in China.
Articles about people losing their jobs after making jokes in poor taste have been circulating for a while now, driven by social media. But a recent trend in US court judgements shows that hitherto private social networks are becoming a rich seam of evidence in court, too.
Mondegreens are misheard lyrics – the term is derived from a mondegreen itself – and some people have a real talent for it.
Today’s post focuses on a contingent of writers that reverses, exploits and destroys grammar conventions for literary effect.
German-English relations: how not to do small talk with a feisty Englishman.
Chat with these celebs about plum cake and German Schlager music.
We’re all familiar with the explosive growth of tablet computers over the past five or so years, but what’s happened to the more humble e-reader, a device which was supposed to revolutionise our reading experience?
Fisch oder Vogel – this was a phrase I heard over lunch the other day and it got me thinking. Idioms are a funny thing. They often seem nonsensical and […]
I’m a big fan of obscure facts and language is a great source. These snippets of information are essentially useless for daily life, but do give a deeper insight into a country and its culture than meets the eye. So here are a few of my favourites in no particular order.
So, you wanna write like Hemingway? Good luck if you’re not a natural born talent. But don’t give up hope. I have three solutions in mind that might help: Fuhgeddaboudit […]
We all like swearing. There’s just something intrinsically interesting about it.
Why is it that software developers leave their code lying out for a few days when it smells bad?
It’s a question we’re faced with every time we fly long haul. But have you ever thought about why a cow is beef and chicken is chicken?
What does Apple’s iOS7 have in common with ancient Egypt, and why are some people glad to see the back of it?
You only get one chance to make a first impression. So why is it that no matter how truthful the spoken words are, we sometimes fake the way we speak?
The 25th of January marks a special event in the Scottish calendar: it is perhaps the only day of the year where we address our food with a poem and then ceremoniously stab it. On such a day I thought it would be helpful to provide a translation of the poem – as well as an explanation of why we show such reverence for the dish.
Following on from yesterday’s post, today we look at some examples of the Scots language in literature and lament its fading. Equating being English with being Educated After the Protestant […]
Well, there I was in my introductory blog post bemoaning my lack of language skills, when it turns out that not only am I diglossic, apparently I’m also able to code-switch. That came as a welcoming thought, though as I’ll explain it’s somewhat bittersweet.
When the thirteen original American colonies were founded by the United Kingdom, English became the lingua franca. As the colonies grew, their populations were fed with immigrants speaking a range of languages but English remained the administrative tongue. However, as English translators well know, differences have crept in over the centuries. So which side of the pond speaks ‘correct’ English? The truth is actually the converse of what you might think.
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