Last Friday’s edition of BBC2 quiz show “Mastermind” included the following question: “The name of what form of aerial transport comes from the Greek for spiral and wing?” It was during the final general knowledge round, which you can see at 24:44 on this BBC iPlayer link for the next 26 days. The answer is… Continue reading Word of the week: helicopter
Last weekend my daughter (who celebrated her 12th birthday earlier this month) asked me what a philanthropist was. Before answering the question I asked her where she’d come across the word. It was on a web page about Katie Piper who, sadly, was voted off “Strictly Come Dancing” that evening. We were rooting for her… Continue reading Word of the week: philanthropist
This piece from last week, by Sirena Bergman in The Independent, begins, “Ten years ago I’d never heard the term ‘gaslighting’.” She discusses it in the context of a recent news story regarding two contestants on the most-watched show on UK television, “Strictly Come Dancing”, as you can see by following the link above. The… Continue reading Word of the week: gaslighting
The Hopper Fare was introduced here in London back in 2016. It allowed you to make two bus journeys for the price of one, as long as the second journey started within an hour of the first. This was a simple, easily understood change to the fares system. It saved people money. From what I… Continue reading Word of the week: Hopper
In this piece from February 2016 I summarized the three levels of expertise that apply to practical skills, skills like speaking another language or playing a musical instrument. I categorized these three levels of expertise as “nothing, something and everything”. The first of these applies when you have no familiarity with a task. I offered… Continue reading Word of the week: transpose
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
The Compartments 