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'No cap' to 'main character energy': World English Day celebrates 100 popular phrases

Published: 23 Apr. 2025, 16:32

YOON SO-YEON
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The “Phrase-ology: a collection of 100 English phrases″ e-book released by the British Council to celebrate World English Day [BRITISH COUNCIL]

The British Council will celebrate World English Day with a global “Phrase-ology” campaign that looks back on the origin of 100 major English phrases currently used around the world.

World English Day, which falls every year on April 23, the birth and death date of English literary legend William Shakespeare, was designated by the United Nations in 2010 to celebrate the English language as a universal tool of global communication.

For the 100 Phrase-ology campaign, the British Council has chosen 100 popular English phrases that have been chosen by an analysis of digital data from five major online platforms including Google Ngram, YouTube, Twitch and Civic Comments. Linguist Barbara McGillivray and natural language processing professional Iacopo Ghinassi analyzed the data to choose English phrases used most often by different generations.

The phrases range from centuries-old expressions such as “Kill two birds with one stone” and “Better late than never” to relatively younger phrases such as “Spill the tea,” “No cap” and “Main character energy,” that have become recently popular among the younger online generation.

Tourists dressed in hanbok, or as traditional Korean dress, take selfies at Gyeongbok Palace in central Seoul on March 3, as visitors enjoyed the last day of a three-day weekend to mark the March 1 Independence Movement holiday. [NEWS1]

The experts found that some English phrases even came from other languages, such as “Moment of truth” — which actually came from the Spanish phrase of the same meaning that reads, “hora de la verdad.”

Other idioms that have been formed from other languages are explained under the section Global English. Seven other sections include: Classic Evergreen, the centuries-old expressions; Generational, containing expressions that were the “it thing” of certain generations; the self-explanatory chapters Sports, Gen Z and Shakespeare; and expressions that came from religion, under the Language of Belief section.

Other findings are available in a free e-book released by the British Council, titled “Phrase-ology: a collection of 100 English phrases.” It can be downloaded from the British Council website.

“Whether you're a learner, a teacher, a linguist or just curious about language, this is an opportunity to explore the origins and meanings behind some of English's many phrases,” said the British Council.

BY YOON SO-YEON [[email protected]]