Posts by Fiona McPherson
Don’t forget your pants!
Your response to today’s Take Your Pants For A Walk Day, assuming it has even crossed your radar, will probably be determined by your location. Perhaps you have conjured up an image of droves of people with boxer shorts, knickers, or Y-fronts attached to leads? Or maybe instead of underwear, you are seeing chinos, slacks, [...]
Wombling free: what does Wimbledon have in common with the language of sustainability?
Wimbledon – that fortnight of lush green grass, strawberries, and tennis. Mention Wimbledon to a British person above the age of 30 and they are likely to mention something else – Wombles. For the uninitiated, the Wombles are a group of creatures who live in an underground burrow on Wimbledon Common and who, as the [...]
Don’t get honey-fuggled, you doughnut! And other inventive uses of food in English
A few Fridays ago, it was National Doughnut Day. Did you celebrate or did it completely pass you by in the way that most of these days probably do? At least with this particular festivity, there would appear to be an appropriate way to celebrate. The same might not be said for, say, National Stapler [...]
What inspired the language of A Clockwork Orange?
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. His dystopian novel, set sometime in the near-future, tells the story of teenage anti-hero Alex and his gang of friends, and their violent escapades. Tea-drinking and toast-munching Or put another way, it tells the story of Alex and his [...]
Pi Day: or the world of homonyms, homographs, and homophones
Today is Pi Day, a day, presumably, when all things 3.14159 are celebrated. Unless I have made a typo in the first sentence, it should be obvious that you should not be expecting lots of “Who ate all the pies” chants as we honour the humble pastry case with filling. Similarly, the numismatists among you [...]
Mondegreens: plywood heels and Bohemian sausages
Ye Highlands and ye Lawlands, Oh where have you been? They have slain the Earl O’ Moray And layd him on the green Misheard earls So goes the first verse of The Bonnie Earl of Murray, a 17th century Scottish ballad. Now unless you are an aficionado of such things, you might not be familiar [...]
Long to reign over us: the language of anniversaries
On 6 February, 1952, Queen Elizabeth II began her reign as monarch of the United Kingdom. Although she would not be ceremonially crowned until 2 June 1953 (the same day that news reached London of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s successful ascent of Mount Everest), she was proclaimed queen of the Commonwealth upon the [...]
What is the origin of the word ‘posh’?
There have been many attempts to explain the etymology of posh, with some theories being more persuasive than others. Stylish dandies and cash Posh, meaning ‘smart, stylish, splendid, luxurious’ is first recorded in 1914, with the chiefly British strand of meaning, ‘typical of the upper classes; snooty’, following soon after. As the Oxford English Dictionary [...]
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