500th post

I started this blog in November 2014. Five hundred posts in three and a half years is an average of one post every two and half days, which is what I subjectively estimated before I calculated it.

WordPress provides me with a range of statistics (and would give me more if I paid to upgrade my plan). Since I started, the number of views per month has gone up from one or two hundred to six or seven hundred. The best month was January this year, when for no apparent reason I got over a thousand views, but that was an exception. I have had readers from 145 jurisdictions, including one from each of the Northern Mariana Islands, Burundi, Papua New Guinea, Bosnia & Herzogivina, the Palestinian Territories, Botswana, Laos, Guyana, Libya, Guam, Timor-Leste, Tajikistan, Zimbabwe, Micronesia, Guernsey, the Maldives, Barbados, Estonia, Iceland, Sudan and Benin. G’day mates. (Goodness knows what brought them here.)

The top ten countries, though, are:
10 Brazil
9 Ireland
8 the Philippines
7 India
6 Germany
5 Canada
4 South Korea
3 the United Kingdom
2 Australia
1 the United States

Make of that as you will – mainly countries where English is the primary language, an official or strong second language, or a major language learned by students.

The top ten posts by views are:
10 Maxim Mocha Gold Mild Coffee Mix – English loan words in Korean and French, Latin and Arabic loan words in English
9 Grammar in Dr Suess’s Fox in Socks – Part 1 – more about spelling and pronunciation than grammar
8 ‘A few of my favourite nouns’ – nouns and noun phrases in My favourite things
7 Biblical names in Korean – specifically, the names of the books of the Bible
6 Country names ending with two consonants – a tv quiz show asked for country names ending with two consonants, but has a perplexing rule as to what a consonant is
5 Korean movie – A melody to remember – I watched a movie entirely in Korean, but there was a lot of singing
4 Grammar in Dr Seuss’s ‘Green eggs and ham’ – statements, negatives, questions, modal verbs, ellipsis, imperatives
3 Australia or Austria – there’s a difference
2 ‘The court of King Caractacus’ – extended noun phrases, pre-modifiers (usually adjectives), post-modifiers (usually relative clauses)
1 How to speak Aussie Abbreviate Everything – Part 1 – yeah right mate

Make of that as you will as well – grammar, Australia, South Korea, songs and Dr Seuss. Maybe that’s a pointer to the kinds of posts I should focus on in the future.

On the occasion of my 500th post, I would like to encourage you to comment – on this post and every other. In fact, my first idea for this 500th post was to write PLEASE COMMENT 500 times. The first reason I write this blog is to clarify my own thoughts about language, as an English language teacher, editor, choral singer and second language learner. The second reason is to meet and communicate with like minds around the world.

A regular reader and commenter, who knows me in other ways as well, emailed to say that the system wasn’t allowing her to comment. To the right of each post title is an icon like a cartoon speech balloon. Clicking on that jumps to the bottom of the post, where the comment box is. You have to enter your name (or at least a name, if you want to be anonymous) and email address (which is not shown) or be logged in as a WordPress user. I tried this on the computer at my new workplace, and it worked. 

By the way, it is mainly coincidence that my 500th post falls immediately after finishing an old job and starting a new one. It was coincidence that my total of posts was so close to 500, but, once I realised that, it was easy enough to schedule posts to make it exact.

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