Unlike other figures of speech that I learnt about at school, malapropism is one that stuck first time. I had to look up words like zeugma and synecdoche many times, but not malapropism. From the age of 12 onwards I knew that it takes its name from Mrs Malaprop, a character in Sheridan’s play “The… Continue reading Word of the week: malapropism
Last month, during the last full week of the school holidays, the children saw a double bill of Hugh Grant films, spread out over a few days. First was “Paddington 2” (2017) on Saturday night, while my wife and I were at a restaurant for our wedding anniversary (yes, two restaurant meals on the same… Continue reading Word of the week: suicide
Here is the 100th “Word of the week” piece on this Blog. Looking back through the previous 99 I see that there is one for every letter of the alphabet, apart from “X”, so this one completes the set. It wasn’t planned this way, but at some point in the last 33 months, from adverb… Continue reading Word of the week: xu
“Fascinator” is an example of something that my brother calls “24 Hour Syndrome”, a word or phrase that you hear or read for the first time and then encounter again in a completely different context within the next 24 hours. Looking back over the 580 pieces that are available to you on this Blog right… Continue reading Word of the week: fascinator
The word “clutter” is never far from my mind. It was the subject of the second piece published on this Blog, on the day it was born. That piece links to this November 2007 “Writers Rooms” article in the Guardian. It shows the late Russell Hoban’s working environment. I am surprised to find that this… Continue reading Word of the week: clutter
We have just returned from a few days in Hollywood. I refer here to a village in County Wicklow, Ireland, rather than any other places with the same name. It has a sign similar to the famous one in California, all nine letters spelt out on a hill overlooking the village. It is easier to… Continue reading Word of the week: Hollywood
Earlier this month I mentioned the word intinction in this piece about the closure of a local restaurant. Non-Catholics are unlikely to be familiar with the term, and many of my fellow Catholics may also benefit from a reminder of what it means. Intinction is the practice of dipping the host in the wine at… Continue reading Word of the week: intinction
Here’s another Word of the Week prompted by TV quiz shows, like earlier examples capercaillie, quotidian and Cadillac. Those last two words were on recent episodes of “The 100k Drop”, and so was “monotreme”, in the following question: “In biology which of these words refers to egg-laying mammals?” Options: Monotreme / Cetacean / Marsupial The… Continue reading Word of the week: monotreme
It’s at least 12 years since I first heard something described as “meta”. The meaning was not entirely clear. The word comes up occasionally, and although I had an idea of what it means, until now I had never looked it up or used it myself. Last month Kate Nash used the word “meta” during… Continue reading Word of the week: meta
We are in the middle of a heatwave here in the UK. The Oxford Dictionaries definition is very straightforward: “A prolonged period of abnormally hot weather”. I will use their spelling, one word rather than two, though the Merriam-Webster dictionary entry (“a period of unusually hot weather”) lists it as “heat wave”. I have mentioned… Continue reading Word of the week: heatwave
The Compartments 