‘Losing our nature words’: Dr Robbie Love’s expertise and research helps the National Trust analyse their marketing campaign
Dr Love, a linguistics expert, helped the National Trust to revamp their ’50 things to do before you’re 11 3/4s’ campaign, which aims to help children connect more with nature while growing up.
Dr Love assisted the campaign by comparing how language traditionally associated with nature is being interpreted differently across three generations.
Dr Love’s research revealed that, today, “just one per cent of uses of the word ‘tweet’ relate to birds, with only seven per cent of uses of ‘web’ meaning the structures created by spiders and just 36 per cent of the uses of ‘stream’ relating to a small river”.
It is anticipated that meanings of these words associated with nature may be lost by children by the time they reach the age of six. The article states that losing the original meaning of the word is a concern for one in four parents and grandparents.
