Education

Mum's the word, says the world and that's official!

British Council promotes the learning of English around the world and teaches the language to more than 500,000 people each year. They operate from 80 Teaching Centres in 49 countries and employ over 2000 teachers.

To mark its 70th anniversary British Council polled more than 40,000 learners in 102 countries with its 70 Most Beautiful Words survey to find out what non-English speakers thought were the most beautiful words in the English language.

Mother topped the list and is the most beautiful word in the English language according to this recent survey which included many other words full of comfort and warmth. The BBC news described the 70 words as a "fantastic and gorgeous list … that is full of enthusiasm, passion, tranquillity and other equally strong sentiments".

The top five choices were mother, passion, smile, love and eternity. Interestingly, father did not even make it into the list of 70 words! Fantastic, destiny, freedom, liberty and tranquillity rounded off the top 10. Other words chosen were cosy, cute, peace, blossom, sunshine, sweetheart--they are nearly all words of affection, happy emotions. However, some unusual choices did make the list, such as peekaboo, flabbergasted, hen night and oi! Other words to make the top 70 included serendipity, loquacious, kangaroo and zing.

Almost 500 students participated in the survey at British Council Teaching Centre in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Their top three favourite words were love, mother and peace.

Chris Wade, director of communications at British Council, said the most favoured choices in the list were all strong, positive words.

He said: "All of us have a mother and have a reasonable idea of who that person is, it's one piece of certainty we can have and it's also a very powerful word in a variety of cultures".

He also said the list showed the diversity of the English language: "There are words denoting concepts that people aspire to, like freedom; words that sounded fun like peekaboo and others that aren't really words at all but they convey real meaning, like oi."

The survey ran from September to November 2004.

What are your 3 Most Beautiful Words?
Why are they your favourites? Is it their sound, their meaning?
Without looking back on the article how much can you remember?
*Why did British Council run the "70 Most beautiful Words" survey?
*How many people took part in Bangladesh?
*What words did Bangladesh contribute to the campaign?
*What kind of words were the most favoured choices?
*What were the top five words?

Some of the words from the text are listed below. Can you match them with their definitions

1. An ........................... is a date which is remembered or celebrated because a special event happened on that date in a previous year.
2. If you describe things such as clothes and colours as ........................... , you mean they are bright, rich, and impressive.
3. ........................... is time without an end or a state of existence outside time, especially the state which some people believe they will pass into after they have died.
4. ........................... is the force which some people believe controls the things that happen to you in your life.
5. If you say that you are ........................... by something, you are emphasizing that you are extremely surprised by it.
6. ........................... is the luck some people have in finding or creating interesting or valuable things by chance.
7. If you describe someone as ........................... , you mean that they talk a lot.
8. The ........................... of something is the fact that it contains many very different elements.
9. What a word or name ........................... is what it means or refers to.
10. If you ........................... to something such as an important job, you have a strong desire to achieve it.

Find a synonym (a word with a similar meaning) to go with each word below taken from the Beautiful Word list.

Here is the complete list of words. Do you know what they all mean?

Were your favourite words included in the list?

Answers
Definitions 1. anniversary 2. gorgeous 3. eternity 4. destiny 5. flabbergasted 6. serendipity 7. loquacious 8. diversity 9. denotes 10. aspire
Synonyms
Treasure, stylish, very funny, comfortable, enthusiasm, feeling, harmony, beam, international, gentle song.

Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2004