Category Scientific English

What is your funniest typo?

Typos happen whenever something is written. Even spell checkers and proof reading can not always eliminate all mistakes, for example when the misspelled word is also a valid word in the language used (but with a different meaning). Among the countless boring typos, there are some which stand out, because they transform a regular sentence

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Stress is a stressful false friend

Here is an interesting false friend for those trying to learn German. The English word stress has a number of different meanings. According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the word is used for, for example, mental pressure (as in stress management), physical pressure (for example, a stress fracture), emphasis (the boss lays great stress on

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Feynman was a fine man – how to pronounce Feynman

Most scientists are very familiar with the name and work of Richard Feynman. Among his many achievements and contributions, let me mention Feynman diagrams, the Feynman path integral (an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics), and his work on quantum electrodynamics for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. Feynman is not only

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How to pronounce radius, circumference, diameter

If you ever talk about circles in English, it is useful to know how to pronounce the words radius, circumference, and diameter. radius: Both the British and the American pronunciation is [ˈreɪdiəs], listen to it here. German native speakers should be careful not to pronounce the word in the German way, [‘rɑːdiʊs]. Finally, the plural

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How to write and pronounce metre (meter)

The word metre (the American spelling is meter), the name of the unit of length, only has five letters. Because we use and hear this word so often, we are well aware of the correct pronunciation: [ˈmiːtə] (BE) or [ˈmiːtər] (AE); you can listen to it here. Things become more complicated when we consider words

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Ironic iron – how to pronounce iron

Iron appears to be mispronounced by almost all non-native speakers of English. I don’t remember learning the correct pronunciation in school and most people presumably never notice that there is a right and a wrong pronunciation. I have heard numerous, highly-trained scientists with otherwise excellent English skills who spend their day working with iron consistently

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