English Language FAQ

Leading linguist Noam Chomsky poses one of the central question in this short video here . The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics (Oxford Paperback Reference)

The word bailout has become closely associated with the idea of financial rescue -    to bail out the banks.  But it has many subtle usages - and two spellings! 1. The literal use of bail/bale is to abandon abruptly as in making an emergency exit from an aeroplane in a parachute.  2. The literal meaning of   to bail out  is to remove water from a leaky boat.  3. It is now more common to use bail   in a figurative/metaphorical sense: The minister has bailed on the government's housing policy ( announced his opposition) . The actor bailed on the script (stopped reading his lines with any show of conviction)  4. 'Bail out' is also used metaphorically but usually with a closer connection to the literal meaning: The pilot bailed out of his plane but not Bob has bailed out on us and gone home. 5. The noun is sometimes spelled as one word: bailout. 6. There is a dispute over the spelling of bail and bale - bail is probably used more frequently but both are allowed b

Because the OED tries to reflect the language as spoken and written. English is as Richard Lederer pointed out 'the most democratic language in history'.  To learn about the process by which words are selected see this interview with the OED editor. Oxford Dictionary of English Concise Oxford English Dictionary: 11th Edition Revised 2008 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: Sixth Edition

Tsunami is a Japanese word combining 'tsu' meaning port with 'nami' meaning wave. This word seems to have replaced the more technical 'tidal wave' in public discussion. More Japanese words in English (with audio) here : Japanese Demystified: A Self-Teaching Guide

Child Language: Acquisition and Development

Mission creep is when an original plan or objective is progressively widened by events on the ground. Significantly the phrase has military origin Originating in Somalia in 1993, the modern term “mission creep” became part of official U.S. Army vocabulary a decade late r. Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations and Support Operations (February 2003) acknowledges two types of mission creep. The first occurs when “the unit receives shifting guidance or a change in mission for which the unit is not properly configured or resourced.” Lewis and Clark  In other words you start with a limited objective but this expands to the point where it is no longer clear. This phrase has also been used to describe non-military matters - financial regulation, for example . The Dictionary of Military Terms

The King of the Dudes (1888) dude,  now perhaps most familiar as a slang term with a wide range of uses (including use as an all-purpose interjection for expressing approval:  "Dude!" ) Read more:   The use of 'dude' to describe a male person is becoming increasingly universal amongst young English speakers. Its origins are disputed but certainly date  back a little further than Dude, Where's my Car? (2000).  According to the American Heritage Dictionary: Originally it was applied to fancy-dressed city folk who went out west on vacation. In this usage it first appears in the 1870s.   Dude makes an appearance in and in Mark Twain's  A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court  (1889) and  pops up in the letters of that unlikely hipster P.G Woodhouse  ('the only English characters the American public would read about were exaggerated dudes ' )   The word maintained its cult status, appearing in two classic rock songs  'All the