During the autumn I was engaged in a machine-learning project, trying to predict pronunciation from English spelling, but I took the uncharted approach of seeing…
The word synchronise is often shortened to a single syllable which sounds like sink, but whose spelling varies between <sync> and <synch>. This variability introduces us to…
Why are the words two, to and too spelt differently, even though they sound the same? What about meat and meet? Or catarrh and Qatar? Or OutKast and outcast? And why do greet and great not rhyme? The answer lies…
This is just a short note from some graphs I’ve been creating this week: The above plot shows like 60,000 bisyllabic words and names of…
The problem This weekend, as soon as soon as Ireland had been dispatched from the rugby world cup in Japan, I kept seeing the word…
Ireland are playing Samoa in rugby tomorrow and I had expected that Samoa would be the word of the week. Unfortunately, the pre-match build-up has…
Update: Now that Scotland have dispatched of Samoa, Ireland’s fate is back in their own hands, but here is a table outlining the permutations: Ireland’s…
Coming soon…
Irish rugby fans will already know which players are on the first plane to Japan and which ones will be sitting at home, moping, and…
Forming questions is a big problem for many learners of English and I have always wondered why. Students are always asking me odd-sounding questions like:…
In the first of a series of posts, I explain here the content of the book I am going to write, here on my blog.…
This was the final list of references in my PhD. I will add explanations about the various texts when I get round to it. …