Talking About English on the BBC

If you're in a mood to eavesdrop on some smart conversations about language, tune in to any of these fine programs on the BBC Radio 4 website. A word of caution: navigating the pages may try your patience. (Look for audio links at "Listen again" or "Listen to the latest edition" or "Listen to this programme in full"--but not "Listen live," which will likely call up the shipping forecast.) Eventually, however, you'll be rewarded.

• Fry's English Delight
  Britain's wittiest polymath, Stephen Fry, hosts this new series on the English language--or rather on three particular uses of English: metaphors (first broadcast on August 25, 2008), quotations (scheduled for September 1), and clichés (September 8). Though the visiting dons are a bit, well, donnish, Fry himself informs and delights with a fair degree of accuracy.



• Word of Mouth
  Now in its 16th year, this half-hour program focuses on the endless varieties of both written and spoken English. Be sure to catch the most recent edition, in which linguists Geoffrey Pullum and David Crystal tell us exactly how they feel about SNOOTS and other self-appointed "guardians of the language."



• Routes of English
  One of the most ambitious language programs ever produced on radio, several episodes (or at least snippets of episodes) are still available online. Host Melvyn Bragg traces the course of spoken English "from its first glimmerings in Anglo Saxon Wessex to contemporary inner London Jamaican English, the Hiberno-English of Derry and the English of colonial Calcutta."



• In Our Time: Rhetoric
  Also hosted by Melvyn Bragg, this installment of "In Our Time" offers an engaging introduction to rhetoric--from its origins in ancient Greece to contemporary applications.



• Word 4 Word
  Originally broadcast in 2005, this six-part series highlights the "uses of everyday vernacular vocabulary, both new and old, from around the UK." But you don't have to be British to appreciate this lively study of regional dialects.

Finally, English teachers (especially teachers of English as a second language) should be interested in a new website that's titled, appropriately enough, Teaching English. Produced jointly by the British Council and the BBC, the site provides "lesson plans, worksheets, teaching tips, articles as well as information about professional development, training, conferences and qualifications."

More About Language:

• Key Dates in the History of the English Language
• Top 10 Websites for Language Lovers
• Definitions of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece and Rome