Etymology
Epics are hard and dull – but today’s are ‘great’ and ‘nice’
Spoiler alert: in Henry Fielding’s play Tom Thumb, the hero is swallowed by a cow ‘of larger than the usual…
‘Shame’ is no longer one’s greatest fear, it’s offence culture’s default response
In 1663, just before Samuel Pepys visited the stables of the elegant Thomas Povey, where he found the walls were…
There’s a lot of interrogating going on – and not just by policemen
My husband sat in his usual chair, interrogating the contents of his whisky glass with his old, tired nose. In…
Illeism: the weird habit of talking about oneself in the third person
Someone has been putting about reports that Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, refers to himself in the third person as…
Word of the week: ‘Granular’, a word used to suggest in-depth analysis
‘Just two sugars,’ said my husband as I passed him his tea. He is cutting down. I doubt he would…
Collins dictionary has got ‘gammon’ all wrong
In the annual dictionary wars to nominate words of the year, in the hope of attracting publicity, Collins has made…
At sixes and sevens about seven and six
Someone on the wireless was talking about marrying in the Liberty of Newgate before the Marriage Act of 1753, and…
Getting on – and falling off – the wagon
Radio 3 tries to distract listeners from music by posing little quizzes and hearing quirky details of history from a…
The polite origins of the police
My husband, who fancies himself as something of a classicist, was delighted to see the Turkish investigators of the Khashoggi…
Mind your language: Woman, women, womxn
When I say that it has given comfort to my husband, you can judge how foolish the Wellcome Institute was…
Was everyone a psychopath before 1909?
My husband is enjoying Do No Harm, the arresting memoir of the brain surgeon Henry Marsh who was on Desert…
Optics: stingy pub measures and politicians’ images
If you’d like to buy a copy of Newton’s Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours…
Petrichor: an awkward word for a pleasant phenomenon
I’m not too sure about the word petrichor, invented in 1964 as a label for the pleasant smell frequently accompanying…
Mind your language: County lines
We are suddenly all expected to know that county lines are to do with the selling of illegal drugs in…
Similar to (as opposed to like, as with, such as)
I’m often annoyed by like being misused in different ways. (In place of as, for example: ‘Like I expected, he was…
Paranoia and The Woman in White
I sat up with a jerk, after contemplating the wallpaper in the television dramatisation of The Woman in White, when…
We’ve been saying ‘wrap up warm’ for a thousand years
In June 1873, Oswald Cockayne shot himself. He was in a state of melancholy, having been dismissed by King’s College…
‘Sorted’ has always had connotations of menace
My heart leapt up on Newport station, an unusual place for that to happen, when I heard a recorded announcement:…
Why do so many academics write so badly?
Why do so many academics write so badly? Those who make the study of language their life’s work are as…
The
Veronica, who looks at Twitter, told me of an exchange she thought would interest me, about the use of the.…
Einstein vs Weinstein
Before I forget, I was cheered by the letter from Keith Aitken in last week’s issue noting another sense for…
Boo
In 1872, the 27-stone figure of the Tichborne Claimant was insisting he was Sir Roger Tichborne Bt, an heir thought…
Bacteria
It’s like whipping cream. All of a sudden it goes stiff and you can turn the bowl upside down without…
Why 'safe' is Dot Wordsworth's word of the year
‘Makes me feel sick,’ said my husband, referring not to the third mince pie of the morning (in Advent, supposedly…
The Spanish village that thought it was called ‘Kill Jews’
A village has changed its name because it seemed offensive. But I think the villagers were under a misapprehension. The…
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