Word books traditionally focus on unusual and quirky items. They tend to ignore the words that provide the skeleton of the language, without which it would fall apart, such as 'and' and 'what,' or words that provide structure to our conversation, such as 'hello.

Academics don't normally manage to alter people's way of thinking through their strength of argument.

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.

As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear.

Grammar is what gives sense to language .... sentences make words yield up their meaning. Sentences actively create sense in language. And the business of the study of sentences is grammar.

Sending a message on a mobile phone is not the most natural of ways to communicate. The keypad isn't linguistically sensible.

A feature of English that makes it different compared with all other languages is its global spread.