Is “prancer” a word? It sounds like a word, meaning “one who prances”, but it’s not recognized by any of the three word processing Apps I use most days: Word 2011 for the Mac, Word 2010 for Windows on my netbook or Word 2016 on my Windows Phone. The first two Apps automatically correct the… Continue reading Word of the week: prancer
Last night my son and I returned to the UK from our holiday in Spain. We landed at Southend Airport, or “London Southend Airport” as it is called. Like any airport within an hour of one of the capital’s mainline stations it has added the word London to its name. It took us an hour… Continue reading Holiday notes: London Southend Airport
On Boxing Day last year (or St Stephen’s Day, the name more commonly used in Ireland) my brother, my 12-year-old son and I undertook a pub crawl in our corner of West London. Friends joined us for parts of our journey and the whole afternoon was described in this piece from the time. The event… Continue reading Holiday notes: a Spanish pub crawl, of sorts
Somebody I know has a most irritating habit. He pretends to mishear things for comic effect. I say “comic effect” but the things he says are never funny. That’s why it’s an irritating habit. Here’s an example. We’re watching a football match on TV and an 18 year old comes on as a substitute. I… Continue reading “A Gerbil?”
The derivation of the word “quiz” is uncertain. The Oxford Dictionaries definition notes that it is “sometimes said to have been invented by a Dublin theatre proprietor who, having made a bet that a nonsense word could be made known within 48 hours throughout the city, and that the public would give it a meaning,… Continue reading Word of the week: quiz
The new football season is nearly upon us. This weekend my wife and daughter will be off to Wembley for the Community Shield between Arsenal and Chelsea and I’ll be deciding whether to watch the Leeds United game (away at Bolton) in a pub or on NOW TV, as I did on the opening weekend… Continue reading The New Trivia Season
This piece, from exactly a year ago, describes how I learnt about two of the architects from the Gilbert Scott family, or maybe that should say “the Gilbert Scott dynasty”. This obituary for Richard Gilbert Scott, who died last month aged 93, says that he “represented the fourth generation of England’s greatest architectural dynasty”. A… Continue reading Chatsworth and Devonshire
It was 36 years ago today that Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer. I was not one of the 28.4 million people who watched the event on British television, or one of the two million who lined the streets of London to see the happy couple, and nor was my father. Instead we went to… Continue reading A Royal Wedding Double Bill
Last week I wrote about compartmentalization, with its 20 letters and 7 syllables. I noted, in this menu piece, that the only other word with 7 syllables that came to mind was homosexuality (13 letters). I’ve discovered another one. It currently features in trailers for various TV and radio programmes being advertised on the BBC:… Continue reading Letters and syllables
The literal meaning of therapeutic, according to this definition on Dictionary.com, is “of or relating to the treating or curing of disease; curative”. Many of us use it in the more vague sense of something that makes you feel good, something that improves your peace of mind. I used it earlier this month when a… Continue reading Word of the week: therapeutic
The Compartments 