A retired journalist who founded a campaign to preserve the correct use of the apostrophe in the English language. is giving up his battle because he says “ignorance has won”. We discuss what’s causing the decline in the use of this punctuation mark and teach you some vocabulary along the way.
This week’s question
The word ‘apostrophe’ itself – which language does it come from? Is it:
a) Latin
b) Greek
c) Arabic
Listen to the programme to find out the answer.
𝐕𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐛𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐲:
𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐭
Someone overly concerned with correcting small mistakes
𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫
to stay in a place longer
𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫
to walk around with no real purpose or desire to get somewhere quickly
𝐮𝐩 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐢𝐫
at risk, possibly not going to happen
𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞
a lack of knowledge about something
𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧
a primitive and uncivilized person
To download the audio and a transcript, go to our website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/6-minute-english/ep-200109