After last week’s featured word (Superbowl) here’s another with a sporting theme, prompted by the start of the Winter Olympics from Pyeongchang in South Korea. “Luge” is defined by the Oxford Dictionaries website as a noun (“A light toboggan for one or two people, ridden in a sitting or supine position”), a mass noun (“A… Continue reading Word of the week: Luge
I didn’t get enough sleep last night. Like many other sports fans here in the UK I stayed up late to watch the Superbowl, Philadelphia Eagles winning their first title against defending champions the New England Patriots. Unlike most other sports fans I hadn’t planned to spend the early hours of Monday morning this way,… Continue reading Word of the week: Superbowl
“Egregious” is a word that I have never heard in day-to-day conversation, or on the radio or on TV. I have seen it in print and didn’t know what it meant until looking it up last Friday. It came up in this Guardian piece about racism by the always excellent Gary Younge, in the following… Continue reading Word of the week: egregious
You are probably familiar with “Vogue”, Madonna’s worldwide hit from 1990. If not, here’s the official video from YouTube, which shows the accompanying dance moves. Vogue, as a verb, is defined by the Oxford Dictionaries website as, “Dance to music in such a way as to imitate the characteristic poses struck by a model on… Continue reading Word of the week: Vogue
An acronym is a word made up of the initial letters of other words, like NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) or AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). You probably knew that already, but I only became familiar with the word at university, when someone explained the derivation of the word Narg (which you can read about… Continue reading Word of the week: backronym
What word or words do you use at the end of brief exchanges with people you don’t know? If you pay for something in a shop or bar, what do you say when you get your change or your receipt? If the person who has served you is male, maybe it’s “Cheers mate” or “Thanks… Continue reading Word of the week: man
The shortest “Word of the Week” item so far on this Blog is this one about kakistocracy. I first heard the word on a quiz show back in March. As that earlier piece notes: “Some of these … pieces are about words that have come up in a few different contexts in the weeks beforehand… Continue reading Word of the week: taiga
Earlier this year, on an episode of the ITV quiz show “The Chase”, Bradley Walsh told a brief anecdote about Winston Churchill and the orange-based liqueur Cointreau. The story, as I recall it, was that when Churchill was in his 70s his doctor told him that he wasn’t eating enough fruit and vegetables and needed… Continue reading Word of the week: Cointreau
Today is International Mountain Day. That’s a new one on me. According to its website, here, “The United Nations General Assembly designated 11 December ‘International Mountain Day’. As of 2003, it has been observed every year to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development… Continue reading Word of the week: Hope
Back in the 1970s we often heard the word nostalgia in the following one-liner: “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be”. Etymologically that turns out to be true. The word is derived from the Greek “nostos” (return home) and “algos” (pain), so it used to mean homesickness (like “Heimweh” in German), or a longing for… Continue reading Word of the week: nostalgia
The Compartments 