Posts by Claire Etty

Georgette Heyer, zaftig, and the Oxford English Dictionary

“My name is Claire Etty. And I am a reader of historical novels.” Apologies for the AA-style confession. But every time my boyfriend spots a Georgette Heyer open on the coffee table he sneers (from behind his New Statesman): “Exercising the grey cells again?” It usually is Georgette Heyer. I’m aux anges over her books, [...]

Posted on: October 17 2012 | Posted by: | Comments: 2 | Categories: English in use, Word origins | Tags: , , , ,

The language of cooking: from ‘Forme of Cury’ to ‘Pukka Tucker’

The earliest surviving English-language recipes came from the kitchens of kings and their great nobles. Richard II’s Master Cooks boasted that their Forme of Cury contained only the ‘best and royallest viand of all Christian Kings’, and, what’s more, had been approved by the king’s physicians and philosophers. Healthy eating issues and celebrity endorsements are [...]

Posted on: August 30 2012 | Posted by: | Comments: 2 | Categories: Dictionaries and lexicography, English in use, Word origins | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,