english matters

Mondays are the bane of our existence. Following a weekend of relaxation, we return to work, and face a new week of annoying coworker, evil teachers and nagging bosses. As the the graph below shows, you actually have no plans this week anyway, and as the week progresses, you only look forward to Friday and the multitude of plans which await you this weekend. Mondays have also inspired some to create art. Poet Jelisa Jeffery wrote a poem about the world's least favourite day. The poem, made up of three quatrains, talks about…Czytaj dalej …

This year marks the anniversary of one of the world's most loved children's books: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Written in 1964 by Roald Dahl, the book follows the fate of Charlie Bucket, a poor child who wants nothing more than to visit the famous Wonka chocolate factory. One day he finds a Golden Ticket in a bar of chocolate. It is an invitation to tour the factory by the owner Willy Wonka. Four other children have already found the golden invitation. On the fateful day, they are greeted by the colourful and…Czytaj dalej …

As with any living organism, the English language is growing, evolving and changing. Not only do words come and go, but the accents gradually tweak and are eventually forgotten. Here is an extremely interesting documentary on the London's Globe Theatre's productions of some of Shakespeare's plays in the Original Pronunciation (OP) rather than the modern Received Pronunciation. Father and son team David and Ben Crystal discuss how Shakespeare's plays sound better in OP and many gags and word puns work in the original London accent but not in the modern interpretation. Linguist David…Czytaj dalej …

Anyone who has ever travelled on the London Underground (affectionately known as the Tube), knows that it is relatively easy to travel from one station to the other. This is mainly thanks to the intuitive map which can be found at every station and on every train. It wasn't always like this. The colourful map as we know it today was first conceived in the early 1930s by Harry Beck, a draughtsman working for the underground train company. Before he had his brainwave, the maps were geographical, superimposed on the actual map of…Czytaj dalej …

Over the fifty years I spent as a designer, architect, writer and urban planner, I was influential in the development of what is today called modern architecture. I was born in Switzerland, in a small town in the Jura mountains in 1887. Since I was interested in art from a very early age, I soon started travelling the length and breadth of Europe, meeting influential artists of my day, including Gustav Klimt, Peter Behrens and Josef Hoffmann. We spent many hours discussing the future of design, and how to make beautiful but useful…Czytaj dalej …

Here's a funny sketch by British comedian Ronnie Corbett, who walks into a greengrocer to complain about something. Do you understand this humour? Script: I bought something from you last week, and I'm very disappointed. Oh yeah? What's the problem? Yeah, well, my blackberry is not working. What's the matter, it run out of juice? No, no, it's completely frozen! Oh, yeah, I can see that. I tell you what: let's try it on orange. That's got a few black spots, you see... Oh, dear, yes. Sorry about that. Well, is there anything…Czytaj dalej …

I just came back from a Polish wedding this weekend, and while the hangover has passed (partly thanks to a healthy helping of Żurek soup, made with sour rye), I got thinking about the strange traditions of weddings around the world. In Poland, the wedding celebrations traditionally last all night, and a second party is held at around noon the following day! Just after the wedding ceremony, the bride and groom are met by their respective parents, who hold a loaf of bread and salt. The newlyweds eat some of the bread dipped…Czytaj dalej …

Arachnophobes beware: some chilling reading awaits! Man has been making fabrics since time immemorial. The word “textile” comes from the Latin for “weave,” and the oldest textiles ever found come for the area which is now modern-day Georgia and date back to around 35,000 BC (Before Christ). Over history fabrics have been made from a whole palette of materials: cotton, sheep's wool, camel hair, and hemp, to name but a few. Until recently, however, no-one had been able to produce cloth made from one of nature's strongest materials – spider silk. This was…Czytaj dalej …