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Susie Dent

Susie Dent

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Why the Brontë sisters have their dots back at last

When the New Yorker magazine was starting out, its editors apparently weighed up the benefits of adopting “co-operate” over “cooperate”. They...

28.09.2024 6

iNews

Susie Dent

Cheer up, Gareth Southgate – the English language skews towards negativity

“Cheer up love, it might never happen”: a sentence guaranteed to make any glum passer-by feel even worse than they did already. Judging by the sea...

30.06.2024 8

iNews

Susie Dent

Roman contests have nothing on our savage political vocabulary

If you decided to tune into the election debates this week, you might find the etymology of the word “arena” rather appropriate. The word comes...

08.06.2024 5

iNews

Susie Dent

‘Piffle’ and other words to help you survive the general election

The one thing we can be sure of in the next four weeks is a lot of bumf: bumf through our letter boxes, bumf in our inboxes, and virtual bumf on our...

28.05.2024 40

iNews

Susie Dent

Why 'Beyoncé' is the perfect word to add to the French dictionary

“I’m not bossy, I’m the boss”: a characteristically skilful sentence from the singer-songwriter and businesswoman Beyoncé, who used it in a...

04.05.2024 20

iNews

Susie Dent

The word 'neek' makes my heart ache for children like me

It’s not often that a new addition to the dictionary makes my heart sink. I’ve spent decades on the side of evolution, greeting every new word as...

29.03.2024 10

iNews

Susie Dent

Our MPs have turned the English language into a dangerous battleground

Few dictionary definitions in recent memory were as hotly anticipated as the one for “Brexit”, which in 2016 had us all desperate for an escape...

05.03.2024 2

iNews

Susie Dent

The science behind why we change our accent depending on who we're with

A few years ago, academics at the University of London confirmed what West Country farmers have suspected for years: that cows have an accent. The...

14.01.2024 10

iNews

Susie Dent

Feeling crapulent after Christmas? Go easy on your arseropes

Crapulence. It’s a word to conjure with, and it may be one you need. Born in the 18th century, it is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as...

29.12.2023 20

iNews

Susie Dent

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