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Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex from the University of Queensland discusses the wonderful and odd aspects of English and many other languages.

A Word in Your Ear

Now that the festive season is done, its time to pack up the decorations, put away leftover wrapping paper and store this year's Christmas cards.

A Word in Your Ear: New Year & Christmas Alliteration

It's an age old question: 'Haitch' or 'Aitch'? What do the differences in how we pronounce words say about us?

A Word in Your Ear: Articulation & Speech Patterns

Whether you're meeting someone for the first time or you see them every day, the way we greet and farewell someone can say a lot about your culture, manners and familiarity to the other person.

A Word in Your Ear: Hello and Goodbye

Have you ever heard weather phrases such as 'the wet', 'rain bomb' or 'mizzle' and wonder where they came from or what they actually mean? Roly Sussex takes us on a journey through weather event terminology.

A Word in Your Ear: Wild Weather Words

Often times Australians will initially adopt Americanisms ironically but after a while the irony disappears and those words and phrases become part of our everyday language.

A Word in Your Ear: Americanisms Part 2

Australia is the most Irish country in the world outside Ireland.

Irish-born immigrants and their descendants have been a feature of the Australian population since the arrival of the First Fleet in New South Wales in 1788.

You may assume America would be in the running for that title - they have 30 million people claiming Irish heritage.

A Word in Your Ear: St Patrick's Day

Nothing gets our gold and green nation going like a good game of sport and in particular footy! Where it's League, Rugby or AFL - our passion runs deep. 

In fact, Australia has one of the highest sports participation rates in the entire world.

A Word in Your Ear: Footy Talk

English is Australia's de facto national language and like many nations, us Aussie's have put our own spin on it. 

Many Australians are even surprised to find out that different regions or states tend to have their own unique dialects.

A Word in Your Ear: English Dialects

What is the history of birthdays?

These days, people celebrate with cake, candles, balloons and gifts! 

However, after years of celebrating with these items, they almost become afterthoughts. But how did these forms of celebrations arise?

A Word in Your Ear: Hip-hip-hooray

Phrasal verbs are verbs with more than one word like 'wake up' and 'look forward to'. 

There are thousands of them in English and they can be quite tricky but once you notice these phrasal verbs, you'll pick them up all the time. 

"Turn off the TV" is an example of a phrasal verb, which is a verb that has a base verb and one or two particles.

A Word in Your Ear: Phrasal Verbs

Do you ever "soften" your language to sound more polite? Roly Sussex explains "hedges", where English soften statements for pleasantry's sake.

A Word in Your Ear: Hedges and Politeness

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