This piece is about the 4-letter word that begins with “C” and rhymes with “hunt”. In the thousand or so pieces published so far on this Blog I have referred to this word a few times but never spelt it out, and will not do so here. Over the last ten days I have watched… Continue reading Word of the week: The C Word
These “Word of the week” pieces have become rather less frequent in recent months, for no particular reason. I have drafted several posts without finalizing them, but there are still over 170 finished pieces (and over 100,000 words of text) dotted throughout this site about words that have been in the news or come to… Continue reading Word of the week: crucify
Uno, as you probably know, represents the number one in at least two languages (Spanish and Italian are the ones that I am familiar with). It is used specifically for nouns that take the masculine form, though this is not always straightforward. The word for a car is masculine in Spanish (“coche”) but feminine in… Continue reading Word of the week: Uno
Last Friday, Channel 4 devoted the hours after 9pm to the sitcom “Friday Night Dinner”, to mark the show’s 10th anniversary. We have been big fans of the show for the last couple of years and were looking forward to it. There was a documentary featuring interviews with the cast, crew members (including the writer, Robert Popper) and celebrity fans. One of the show’s stars,… Continue reading Word of the week: mischievous
Breakfast TV here in the UK currently offers us three main options: “BBC Breakfast” on BBC1, “Good Morning Britain” on ITV and comedy shows on Channel 4. “Milkshake” on Channel 5 is aimed at young children, and 10 years ago, when our children were 4 and 6, we often tuned in for episodes of “Peppa… Continue reading Word of the week: “Cheers”
Picture, if you can, the cover of the Beatles album “Help!” The Fab Four are standing with their arms in a variety of positions, spelling out letters in semaphore. I had always assumed that they were spelling the letters H-E-L-P, but according to a Christmas edition of “Only Connect” late last year they are spelling… Continue reading Word of the week: NUJV
Yesterday was Census Day here in the UK. Once every decade, in the years ending in “1”, adults are obliged to fill in a form recording details about themselves and their household. I don’t recall how we filled in the form in 2011, whether it was online or on paper, but yesterday it was all online. It was a… Continue reading Word of the week: census
I am a reluctant user of WhatsApp, as has been mentioned more than once in these pages. I am a member of two WhatsApp groups, and am the only link between the two of them: one (which has gone very quiet in recent months) contains cousins on my father’s side; the other consists of half a dozen friends from college. Late last year there… Continue reading Word of the week: Brutalism
Another month, another variant. A year after we first heard of the COVID-19 strain of Coronavirus, which has transformed all our daily lives, news emerges of another variant, from South Africa. This follows on from the UK variant announced late last year. Here in the UK, over 100,000 people have died in the last year… Continue reading Word of the week: variant
The town of Crawley, in West Sussex, has been in the news over the last few days. Their local football club, Crawley Town FC, hosted Leeds United in the FA Cup Third Round yesterday and won comfortably, 3-0. Leeds are three divisions and 62 league places above yesterday’s opponents, but it didn’t look that way,… Continue reading Word of the week: Crawley
The Compartments 