The Scottish Referendum: words for thought (1)
As you’re probably aware (you certainly will be if you live in Scotland or one of the other UK countries!), on 18 September people on
Tag: etymology
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The meaning of happiness
Today is the International Day of Happiness so websites and blogs will probably be awash with videos featuring “Happy” by Pharrell Williams (or check out the 24-hours of
Happy burger day!
Today is apparently National Burger Day. For those of us more interested in words than in food (who am I kidding?), here’s the etymology of
Coping with Sandy: Hunkering and coorie-ing
Merriam-Webster’s “Trend Watch” reported a spike in lookups of the word “hunker” in the run-up to Hurricane (Superstorm?) Sandy. They give this CNN headline as
Who are you calling feisty?!?
Yikes! I was browsing through the Online Etymology Dictionary for -le frequentatives the other day, as you do, and eventually arrived at the etyolomogical definition
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered – and true glamour
The title of my post on “bamboozled” comes from the wonderful song “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered“, from the Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey. From
Bewitched, bothered, bewildered and bamboozled
Ofgem, the UK energy regulator, has carried out a review of energy companies’ pricing practices. The review found that competition is being stifled by a combination
Carobs are a girl’s best friend
You know you’ve got problems when you’re flicking through a jewellery catalogue and your eye homes in on the etymology tidbits rather than the diamonds.
And sometimes words are just soooo interesting!
I’ve just been reading Khoi Vinh’s marvellous blog, Subtraction. In his post on “Ways I’m a Dork: Travel Edition” he describes the Grid-It Organizer from
Commas: fascinating facts (and a Stop Press)
Fascinating comma fact 1 A comma is not just a punctuation mark, it’s also a type of butterfly, so-named because of the white comma-shaped marking