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Word for Wednesday: Eggnog

December’s Word for Wednesday theme is festive food and drink. So far we’ve looked at mulled wine and mince pies. The festive drink we have chosen to look at today is eggnog. Traditionally served in North America during the Christmas season, eggnog is a punch made of an alcoholic liquor mixed with egg and sweetened milk or cream. Sometimes it is flavoured with spices such as cinnamon or nutmeg. Other historic names of this drink include ‘egg milk punch’ and ‘milk punch’. Eggnog has been used in American English since around 1775. The word ‘egg’ dates to the mid-fourteenth century and comes from Old Norse. The word ...

Spellzone July Round-up

British English or American English? The internet means choosing whether to use American spelling or English spelling no longer just depends on what country you live in. More and more people work with colleagues from all over the world and different institutes, organisations, and publications have different style guides. This means it is likely that you will have to change between American and British spelling every now and then. In this article, to celebrate American Independence Day, we shared three of our favourite articles on American English from the archive. Commonly Confused Words July took us back to our Commonly Confused Words series. For vs. Fore vs. Four ...

Let’s Take a Look at American English

Happy 4th of July to our American subscribers! Earlier in the week we shared a BBC article that explored whether English spelling should be made simpler. If you find yourself agreeing that English is more complicated than it needs to be, you’re not alone. Longtime readers of our blog might remember our article on the creation of Webster’s dictionary. In An Independent American Language, we wrote: 'With his dictionary and other spelling books, Noah Webster wanted to emphasise that now America was no longer under the rule of Great Britain, its language should also be independent. Many of the changes involved shortening words and changing odd-looking spellings to ...

Word for Wednesday: Earth

Happy Earth Day 2015! Earth Day is celebrated each year in order to raise awareness and support for protecting the environment. Now in its 45th year, Earth Day is celebrated annually in order to raise awareness and support for conserving the environment. Founded in America in 1970 where 20 million people peacefully demonstrated for environmental reform, Earth Day has since spread across the blue planet and is now acknowledged in 192 countries. So take today to consider what you can do to help preserve our planet, but in the mean time enjoy some of the stunning vistas captured in the short time-lapse film ‘Untouched’ by Shreenivasan Manievannan featuring different Nati...

Vent Your Spleen and 49 Other Idioms about the Human Body - Part 2

One of the reasons English is so difficult to learn is because it is a language full of idioms. An idiom is a combination of words that has a figurative meaning separate from the actual definitions of the words used. When someone talks about a ‘storm in a teacup’, for example, they probably aren’t referring to actual storms in actual teacups! It can be quite hard, as a second-language English speaker, to keep up with all these expressions, and so this year we’ve been compiling lists of idioms alongside their meanings. Last week we looked at the first half of 50 Idioms about the Human Body – now it’s time for part two! to have egg on your face &nda...

Word for Wednesday: Biscuit

Taking the biscuit. A common point of confusion in the English language is the difference between the American and British meaning of ‘biscuit’. Both refer to a delectable baked treat, but what an Englishman would refer to as a ‘biscuit’ is, in America, known as a ‘cookie’. In America a biscuit is a savoury ‘quick bread’ with a consistency similar to the English scone (the pronunciation of which is another of the age-old discrepancy of the language!). In Britain the term biscuit seems to be a much broader term, and they come in an immeasurable and array of shapes and sizes, flavours and textures. The perpetual ambiguity surrounding the ‘biscuit’ comes from the origin of the word its sel...

Word for Wednesday: Grammar

Yesterday was National Grammar Day in America and to celebrate we shared five easy-to-avoid grammar tips on Facebook. This week, for ‘Word for Wednesday’ we thought we’d look at the word ‘grammar’ itself. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘grammar’ as the ‘whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also phonology and semantics’. You can read the full definition of the word here. What we find the most interesting about the word ‘grammar’ is that, like word ‘spell’, it has associations with m...

Word for Wednesday: Halloween

Those brave enough to venture from their homes over the next few nights can expect to encounter ghouls, zombies, specters and a whole host of other things macabre. This week’s word for Wednesday is Halloween, where did the word originate from and why do we practice such a bizarre tradition. Let’s begin with how the word came about… The celebration of Halloween in the Christian calendar itself marks the eve of All Saints Day, also known as ‘All Hallows’ – recognition and feast dedicated to saints known and unknown. Halloween is a Scottish contraction of ‘All Hallow’s’ and ‘Evening’, evening was often shortened to &...

An Independent American Language

Today is Independence Day in the United States. This holiday celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence; a statement explaining the reasons that the Second Continental Congress had voted on the second of July to make what is now known as the United States legally independent from Great Britain. Across the pond, Independence Day will be celebrated with fireworks, parades, and no doubt a lot of family time, but here at Spellzone we thought we’d mark the occasion by having a look at American English. You may remember our article Five Reasons Why English Spelling Is So Difficult, and how one of these reasons was because the English language has roots from all over the pla...