The winner of £100 worth of books from the Guardian Bookshop and a signed copy of For Who the Bell Tolls: One Man’s Quest for Grammatical Perfection will be announced soon, along with five runners-up who also win signed copies. Thanks to everyone who took part 1. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the committee chair, said “an […]

Test your knowledge of the famously tricksy English language (and some classic Guardian howlers) with these posers set by our style guru, David Marsh David Marsh Media: Mind your language | theguardian.com http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/competition/2013/nov/01/language-errors-quiz-david-marsh

The author of Winnie-the-Pooh thought ‘he or she’ should be replaced by ‘heesh’, but there’s nothing wrong with singular ‘they’ As long ago as 1911, the American writer Ambrose Bierce, in his satirical The Devil’s Dictionary, objected to Miss – “a title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the […]

A new book lists 600 words to use if you want to impress. But when is it appropriate to deviate from plain English and indulge in sesquipedalian behaviour? Aged 17, I heard a confession that I found exhilarating. Mr Downs, my English teacher, confessed that he’d read the dictionary. Cover to cover. Most sixth-formers at […]

As words fall in and out of fashion, new ones enter the language. But some, such as autonaut, chassimover and pupamotor, failed to reach the assembly line English is a marvellous mashup of words. A few Celtic placenames. A stock of Old English words (day and night, black and white, food and drink, life and […]

Check the spelling, grammar, punctuation and facts. Then the subeditor’s real work starts Every time I go to a wedding or party, I seem to have the same conversation. Overbearing Git: “What do you do?” Me: “I’m a subeditor.” Overbearing Git: “Oh, so you’re basically a spellchecker?” Then I mumble something about there being a […]