Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like.

The story of English spelling is the story of thousands of people - some well-known, most totally unknown - who left a permanent linguistic fingerprint on our orthography.

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

Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster.

Research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language.

Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it.

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