Yearly archives: 2012
Vampires say the funniest things! A quiz of quotations from famous bloodsuckers
Like those of the creature itself, the origins of the word vampire are somewhat mysterious. The word comes to English from the Hungarian, perhaps having its roots in a Turkish word for a witch. It was introduced into English around the early 1700s in fascinating accounts of European legends. A little later in the same [...]
Solve-it-yourself mysteries #94: the crossword
“Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! ‘The Cross Word Puzzle Book’ is out today.” – F. P. Adams, ‘The Conning Tower’, New York World In April 1924, Simon and Schuster burst onto the New York publishing scene with The Cross Word Puzzle Book, which soon became a bestseller. The crossword was ten years old at the time, and had been gaining [...]
Ay caramba! A look at some of the language of The Simpsons
19 April marks the anniversary of the first airing of The Simpsons on American television – on the Tracey Ullman Show in 1987. Not the first episode mind, that wouldn’t appear until 1989. Fans of the show, of which there are many, might be dismayed to know that there are only 3 quotations from the [...]
The Grapes of Wrath and the language of the Dust Bowl
Seventy-eight years ago, a monstrous black dust cloud blotted out the sun above the American plains. This dust cloud, though the worst, was only one of the dozens of “black blizzards” that since 1931 had plagued Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and large swathes of surrounding states —the area which, at that time, recently had been coined [...]
Footprints in the butter: an homage to elephants in the English language
On April 13, 1796, an elephant set foot on American soil for the first time. Although accounts vary, this elephant has been identified with Old Bet, who became a national sensation as the main attraction of Hackaliah Bailey’s circus. Outside the Elephant Hotel in Somers, N.Y., built by Bailey and named after his star performer, [...]
Johnson and Grose: lexicography’s odd couple
April 15 marks the anniversary of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755), a work that’s today universally recognized as an astonishing feat of solo lexicography. The publication, in 1755, rightly attracted great attention; David Garrick wrote a poetic eulogy to mark the achievement in the Public Advertiser, describing Johnson as ‘like a hero [...]
Surfing the Information Superhighway: the changing face of Internet language
It’s common to associate the Internet with all things modern and new, and so it’s perhaps unexpected that it can be considered to be nearly half a century old; the ‘symbolic birth date’ of the Internet has been declared 7 April 1969, the date of publication of the first RFC (Request for Comments) document. Much [...]
The Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher’s linguistic legacy
The debate around Margaret Thatcher’s political and social legacy will no doubt continue for some time yet. But what of her linguistic legacy? Did she leave her mark on the English language? Iron Handbags It’s fair to say that Margaret Thatcher’s linguistic legacy lies more in what others have said about her and her politics [...]
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