If you learn to play guitar or piano you will probably end up with a repertoire, a set of songs that you can play for your own amusement, or to entertain others. It might consist of just two or three songs but it’s still a repertoire. If you can only play one song, then you… Continue reading Word of the week: repertoire
A couple of months ago, in this piece, I wrote about the sitcom “Friends” and its regular place in our family viewing, even though the last episode of the show aired in 2004. As predicted, the weekday broadcasts on Channel 5 reached the last ever episode (the end of Series 10) before February was out.… Continue reading Word of the week: hibachi
As former Home Secretary Amber Rudd learnt last week, “coloured” is not an acceptable word to describe people of black and minority ethnic background. It is not acceptable here in the UK in 2019, and has not been for many decades, assuming it ever was. I have encountered many people over the years who had… Continue reading Word of the week: coloured
Just like emirp and plangonologist, here’s another word that hasn’t made it into the Oxford English Dictionary yet: plogging. A note from my son’s school tells me that this week he will be taking part in his first plogging session, during PE, and explains: “Plogging is a combination of jogging with picking up litter (Swedish:… Continue reading Word of the week: plogging
The word “emirp” was featured in three bonus questions during last week’s episode of “University Challenge”, broadcast on Monday 4 February 2019 here in the UK. It’s available for another 22 days here on the BBC iPlayer. At 22:24 Jeremy Paxman introduces the bonus questions as follows: “‘prime’ spelt backwards is ‘emirp’, a term denoting… Continue reading Word of the week: emirp
Like most people who first watched Test Match Cricket in the 1970s I have strong memories of the all-conquering West Indies teams that toured England in 1976, 1980 and 1984. My knowledge of Caribbean islands has its origins in the players who beat England so comprehensively on those tours. The 1980 series was more closely… Continue reading Word of the week: Barbados
Here’s a word that was completely unknown to me 24 hours ago: aquafaba. As this definition on the Oxford Dictionaries website tells us, it’s “water in which chickpeas or other pulses have been cooked, used as a substitute for egg whites, particularly in vegan cooking.” Its origin is very recent (2015), “from Latin aqua ‘water’… Continue reading Word of the week: aquafaba
During the Christmas holidays, at a play-date with one of her friends, my 12-year-old daughter was introduced to the Catherine Tate character Lauren Cooper. They watched clips from YouTube on a tablet. Lauren, as you may remember, is the 15-year-old schoolgirl whose catchphrase is based on not being bothered, or “bovvered” about whatever is going… Continue reading Word of the week: bovvered
Calabobos: it’s a Spanish word for a specific type of rain, rain that seems light, like drizzle, but will soak you. My brother told me the word over 20 years ago and I have never been able to remember it. He said that it equates with the phrase “fool soaker”. If you’re foolish enough to… Continue reading Word of the week: calabobos
Sometimes you hear two or three songs in succession that include the same word, not an obvious one like “love” or “baby”, but something unexpected. The first four songs in an episode of “Top of the Pops” shown on BBC4 last weekend all featured the word “fight”. The episode first aired on 6 November 1986,… Continue reading Word of the week: fight
The Compartments 