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Is it "shoo-in" or "shoe-in"?

Is it "shoo-in" or "shoe-in"?

The English language is extremely silly. Plus I celebrate some good news ✨

Ettie Bailey-King's avatar
Ettie Bailey-King
Jan 16, 2025
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Is it "shoo-in" or "shoe-in"?
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Hi friend,

Today I’m celebrating!

Bold Type is CPD accredited

I just found out that Bold Type (my 12 week course in inclusive and accessible communication) is CPD-accredited.

“CPD accreditation serves as a quality mark that guarantees the content, delivery, and outcomes of a training course or other professional education” - the folks at CPD

That means, when you sign up for Bold Type you’re getting an approved, accredited learning experience.

Bold Type has been quality checked by CPD, which helps you to communicate the value of the course to future employers, clients and strangers on the bus/grandparents you want to impress.

You even get a certificate! (Anyone here as motivated by gold stickers as I am? This is like a massive shiny gold sticker).

It doesn’t mean that you know everything there ever will be to know about inclusive language or accessibility (that would be… a lot) but it does recognise you’ve been through a really rigorous 12 week learning experience.

We cover so much material during our 12 weeks together, and it takes a lot of energy and commitment for Bold Types to show up every week. So I’m absolutely delighted that we have something to say “Look: this is what I’ve achieved.”

I’ve been working on this since last year, so I’m really happy to be able to share this good news with you all. To my past and future Bold Types: congratulations!

Okay, on with the show.

English is chock-a-block with contradictions and nonsensical idioms.

In other words, it’s a very, very silly language. As a lover of all things silly, how could I not love language? And as a lover of language, how could I not love these silly linguistic quirks? I’d hazard a guess you will be too, by the end of this post.

4 examples of linguistic weirdness:

  1. “Set” has 464 different definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary.

  2. “Read” is the same in the past and present tense.

  3. “Though," "through," "thought," and "thorough" are all pronounced differently.

  4. “Dust” can mean to remove dust and sprinkle it (on cupcakes).

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Is “themself” a word?

Paul Stregevsky shared a bizarrely fascinating article with these example sentences:

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