For centuries, English speakers have lived with a silent compromise embedded in daily language. Every time a person writes words like the, think, this, or thorough, they use two letters to represent a single, distinct phonetic sound.
Revisiting The Slow Train
One of my favourite songs, by the genius songsters Flanders and Swann, is called The Slow Train. It is a lament for the stations that were at the time, going to be axed in the Beeching Cuts.… Read the rest
Marianne North and the case of the missing species
Ever since Marianne North’s sister, Janet Catherine Symonds, published a condensed version of Marianne’s journals, it has been claimed that one Genus and four species were named in her honour and for the last century, the claim has been repeated so often that it has become gospel.… Read the rest