The what? The Soggies* - our Stamp out Gobbledegook Awards (or Soggies, as we like to call them). This special award, which will be bestowed by the Word Nerds every year, has been created to show the importance of knowing how to say or write what you really mean – and just how foolish you’ll [...]

  Media websites had their feathers ruffled recently over an instruction supposedly given by Philip B Corbett, standards editor for The New York Times, to journalists working for that newspaper. In one of those all-too-familiar cyber-generated pieces of misinformation, it was reported far and wide that Corbett had banned the word “tweet” from the newspaper – [...]

Especially for World Cup tourists – a brief but handy guide to some of South Africa’s most commonly used slang (prompted by an English reader who asked me if “vuvuzela” was an obscure gynaecological condition!). NB: If you’re asking for directions, make a special note of number 8!  1. Dop – an alcoholic drink (as [...]

I learnt a very good lesson today. The internet is international. I knew that all along, of course, but I just hadn’t considered it when I wrote my last blog post. It was on a World Cup-related theme. As the host country, we’re overwhelmed by World Cup fever here in South Africa, so it’s affecting [...]

Got your vuvuzela and your tickets yet? With the 2010 Soccer World Cup just days away, the host cities are dressed in their Sunday best and here in South Africa the excitement is mounting to a fever pitch (sorry – couldn’t resist the pun). It’s got the word nerds in a bit of a froth, [...]

If you’re not convinced about the importance of great spelling and good grammar, then a once-in-a-lifetime dream job – currently advertised at MAINSTREET – may well change your mind. Based in Palo Alto, California, it’s with the folks at Facebook. “Extra” perks include “micro-kitchens and free snacks” at the company’s various offices, and employees at the [...]