English Language FAQ

A 'haircut' is a loss in the value of an investment or security: see  here  for an example. 

A run on a bank is when a large number of customers withdraw their funds simultaneously. If a run on a bank gains momentum it can quickly 'fail' or go out of business, as  happened with Lehman Brothers in 2008. This is what George (James Stewart) is trying to prevent in the famous scene (above) from 'It's a Wonderful Life'. With institutions that are 'too big too fail' a government or international financial organisation may rescue the bank by either taking it over or injecting huge amounts of cash. This is the role the EU is currently playing in Cyprus. Unfortunately the proposed solution, which involved seizing ten per cent of depositor cash has created a crisis of confidence that threatens the banks, the role of Cyprus in the EU and ultimately the EU project itself. How do you stop a bank run? With great difficulty. The traditional remedies are: a) delay -  ....the bank is going to open again next week ... the key requirement is to 'buy tim

This cartoon refers to 'Rickrolling' meme (see below) The word meme was first introduced by Richard Dawkins in  The Selfish Gene . Dawkins was looking for "a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'" to apply a biological concept to 'cultural evolution'. He wrote that evolution depended not on the particular  chemical basis  of  genetics , but only on the existence of a  self-replicating  unit of transmission – in the case of biological evolution, the  gene . For Dawkins, the meme exemplified another self-replicating unit with potential significance in explaining  human behavior  and cultural evolution. [1]   The form a meme can take is very fluid. Here BBC Radio 4's  Start the Week  discuss a 'cultural meme' listen to ‘English FAQ: What is a meme?’ on Audioboo The term  internet meme  is a further simplification of what some have argued is a pseudo-scientific term. It is defined on one tech blog as: a catchphrase or concept

There are, of course, many different approaches. Here is a short guide to some of them: Teaching English Toolkit Low cost ESOL Teaching Packs

The psychologist George A Miller  had an incalculable influence on the new academic discipline of cognitive science and the still disputed notion of psycho-linguistics. His research focussed on working memory - the way the mind processes information.  He observed that the brain encountering the unfamiliar, could absorb roughly seven new things at a time.When asked to repeat a random list of letters, words or numbers, he wrote, people got stuck “somewhere in the neighborhood of seven.” Some people could recall nine items on the list, some fewer than seven. But regardless of the things being recalled — colors and tastes, numbers with decimals, numbers without decimals, consonants, vowels — seven was the statistical average for short-term storage. (Long-term memory, which followed another cognitive formula, was virtually unlimited.) From NYT obituary 02/08/2012 Why is Miller's work important for language teachers? In practical terms this means that the mind best processes new

In linguistics very long words sometimes describe straightforward ideas. Listen to this short description of two key words: descriptivist and prescriptivist. listen to ‘What do linguists mean by descriptivist and prescriptivist?’ on Audioboo Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach Reading, ESL, Spelling, Phonics & Grammar The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics (Oxford Paperback Reference) Teaching English as a Foreign Language For Dummies E.S.L - English As A Second Language

Before You Read  Which language has the most a) native or first language speakers? b) second language speakers? The English Language from ESL Reading Listening: English - the easy language?

According to new research, the English language has doubled in size over the last century . It continues to grow ' by 8,500 words a year' and now stands at 1,022,000 words .'  And the speed of this growth is accelerating :  The language has grown by more than 70 per cent since 1950 .... The previous half century it only grew by 10 per cent ...     source Are all these new words in the dictionary ? English does not have an equivalent version of the Académie française. The only official recognition comes with an entry in the  Oxford English Dictionary  (OED). Interestingly much of this new vocabulary has not been formally recognised. 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.       Why does the OED restrict the words it includes? Because there are so many words in English! The OED is already more than three times bigger than the equivalent dicti

The definition of metanarrative is earnestly debated in faculty lounges and hipster coffee-bars. Here is one attempt: a narrative  about  narratives of historical meaning, experience or knowledge, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a (as yet unrealised) master idea.    J. Childers/G. Hentzi eds.,  The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism  (1995) p. 186 What does this mean in comprehensible English?  I can make no sense of 'narratives of historic meaning' but the meta here seems to be defined as 'wider' or 'overarching'.  So for a Marxist the story of the Russian Revolution forms part of the wider metanarrative of the (supposed) history of class struggle. Terms like  metanarrative  have emerged from the influence of post-modernism on leading universities in the West.  Matt Labash  is one of many to question whether this influence has been entirely beneficial. What is a meme? What does m

Thanks to Ms Langley's Year 11 English class for this Wordle The prefix meta - as in metalanguage, metanarrative etc - is very difficult to pin down. In broad terms meta means 'about itself' - so metalanguage is the language of language. For example a language teacher might use metalanguage like  lexicon or  past perfect in a lesson plan. This is reasonably comprehensible, though some might argue that a less fancy-pants alternative would be technical-terms or even jargon. It could also be argued that unlike other words with the meta prefix (see metatnarrative)  metalanguage has at least the advantage of precision e.g. teachers should avoid using complex metalanguage in the classroom. And it can be useful for teaching identifying the concepts that underpin language learning. What is a meme? What is a metanarrative? Mrs Langley's English Class Wiki

Anyone attending an afternoon showing of a family film will observe that the big screen is not the only one glowing in the cinema. Now it appears that an increasing number of US theatres are running up the white flag to those desperate for their phone fix: An American theatre is the latest to offer so-called 'Tweet seats' where audience members are encouraged to post comments about the performance on the social messaging site.   The Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has formalised a growing trend in theatre audiences to use their phones from within auditoria by giving obsessive tweeters a section of their own.   Its management have roped off a special balcony-level section of the theatre 'that will not be disruptive to other patrons.... Read more :

The London Underground, the first urban rail transport system of its kind, opened 150 years ago today. It is known as the Tube because of the distinctive shape of the trains and tunnels. Many local train networks have copied the basic model of the Underground, but none takes either of its names. So we have the Paris Metro, New York Subway and the Hong Kong MTR. I took the original line (London Metropolitan) to my school every week day and then various lines to various jobs but still only know a fraction of the vast network. What I can say is that you should avoid the Northern Line (if you want to arrive on time) and the Central Line during the Sales. And my fave has always been the District - the beautiful green line which takes you out to Ealing or Richmond, depending where you branch off. Happy Birthday, Tube! 150 facts from 150 years of Underground

In recent years the previously obscure field of typefaces has become increasingly fashionable. Seth Stevenson at Salon suggests that 'font fanatic' Steve Jobs was a crucial influence in the rise of the 'amateur typography expert'.  To join this groovy world of graphic design you first need to identify the difference between serifs (those with 'little feet') and sans serif (those without). sans-serif typefaces (with no little feet at the tops and bottoms of their letters) first appeared in the mid-1800s, they were labeled "grotesque" because they looked quite bizarre to unaccustomed eyes. Serif V Sans Serif Traditionally, sans serifs are used for headline rather than body text in print. The rationale is that the serifs help the eye to distinguish words. But increasingly this approach is challenged by some typographers - with the rules being deliberately subverted by the 'grunge typography' of David Carson, for example. 'Th