Mine today is ‘scones’ 😋 on the wall instead of ‘sconces’ 🕯️ #AmProofreading

Aww, thanks! Got a big proofread coming in tomorrow on a tight deadline, so today I’m re-reading the previous title in the series (which I proofread a couple of years ago) to familiarise myself with the author’s style (and all the very many character names!) – so work that doesn’t feel like work! 😊

Thanks, Ayesha!

a bald child with the words there is no spoon written below him

Alt: Scene from ‘The Matrix’ film of Spoon boy telling Neo (after showing him a spoon) that ‘There is no spoon.’

Ah, thank you! It was such an interesting talk!

Not to mention the roll/bap/bun to go with it!

Word choice still matters. We may have similar words but the fact that they're separate words also signals that they may mean something different. (It'll depend on context.) Prof. Lynne Murphy, closing lecture #CIEP2024

Yes, very true! (I wonder who got to eat it afterwards?!)

So, what’s a word? Are you bilingual or do you just speak 2 languages? Are ‘colour’ & ‘color’ variants of same word, or 2 different words? ‘We pay £5’ is 3 words in writing, but 4 in speech. Is a grammatical error only an error because it has a name? Embrace uncertainty not pedantry! 4/4 #CIEP2024

Words don’t always have a one-to-one relationship. Biscuit & cake are different, but definitions might blur if context is e.g. taxation rather than tea-break (looking at you, Jaffa Cakes! 😋). Chicken burger in US not same as UK (burger=ground meat vs. grilled savoury thing in a bun). 3/ #CIEP2024

We glean more info about something the more ways we describe it, as rightly or wrongly we associate meaning/sub-context with different words. In English, red & pink are different colours, but blue is blue (differentiated by light/dark adjectives), where other langs use distinct words. 2/ #CIEP2024