This short piece in Larry Elliott’s Economics Blog in last week’s Guardian reminded me of how much I like the word “trouser” as a verb. For once I read the piece in the paper itself before checking it online. He writes about the recent travails at BHS, previously owned by Philip Green and sold on… Continue reading Word of the week: trousering
“Blended” has been used for many years to describe an approach to learning that incorporates instructor-led teaching and instruction through other media (online or, historically, other digital resources like DVDs and CD-ROMs). The instructor-led part of the process works best for me: I prefer to be taught things by people rather than through some digital… Continue reading Word of the week: blended
Sponge-worthy is the second example of a hyphenated “Word of the Week” (after Eye-watering from last December). The word will resonate with fans of the US sitcom “Seinfeld”. I have written elsewhere (in my 9,000 words about watching every Shakespeare play in 2003/4) that the UK is probably the only English-speaking territory where the show… Continue reading Word of the week: sponge-worthy
I stand corrected. The Oxford Dictionaries website now defines decimate as a verb meaning to “kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of”, as in “the inhabitants of the country had been decimated”, and also defines it as “drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something)”, for example “public transport has been decimated”. The way… Continue reading Word of the week: decimate
There are many uses of the word “interstitial”. I use it in the context of time. “Interstitial” means “of or relating to an interstice or interstices”, and an interstice can be defined simply as an interval or intervening space. This definition from Dictionary.com goes further: a small or narrow space or interval between things or… Continue reading Word of the week: interstitial
Concordance: it’s both an abstract noun (something you can’t see, hear or touch) and a concrete noun (something you can see, hear or touch). An alternative description for a concrete noun is “something that you can put in a wheelbarrow” (though it might need to be a very big wheelbarrow). The abstract meaning of concordance… Continue reading Word of the week: concordance
Kosher foods are those that conform to Jewish law (kashrut, Jewish dietary law). For any adults reading these lines the word kosher could probably be counted as Universal Knowledge. Twenty years ago I used the word to mean safe (legit, on-the-level), in the way that Arthur Daley in “Minder” might describe a business transaction. Before… Continue reading Word of the week: kosher
Poof: I think that’s how it’s spelt, though it might be puff. It’s a word people used in the 1970s to describe a homosexual, along with its 2-syllable alternative “poofter”. People used it in a similar way to how we use the word “wuss” these days. A kid doesn’t want to dive off the low… Continue reading Word of the Week: poof
Is music a spandrel? This is a question I have discussed with many people over the years, usually beginning with a definition of the word spandrel. The term comes from architecture and has been borrowed to describe the by-product of an evolutionary adaptation, like flight in birds. Feathers evolved to keep birds warm, but they… Continue reading Word of the week: spandrel
Iamb: it’s a “metrical foot”. This is nothing to do with imperial measurements involving distance, it’s about meter in poems, or how syllables are used in a line of poetry. An iamb is a 2-syllable “metrical foot”, a short or unstressed syllable followed by a long or stressed syllable: da-DUM. Examples include the words “remark”… Continue reading Word of the week: iamb
The Compartments 