Tag archives: Romance languages
In a nutshell, cutting the mustard by the skin of your teeth: popular idioms explained
Why do good things ‘cut the mustard’? The word mustard has been used to mean something excellent or superlative for almost a hundred years—the phrase ‘keen as mustard’ draws on the same idea of added piquancy and zest. ‘Hot stuff’, in other words. In America, to say something was ‘the proper mustard’ in the early [...]
How Latin outlived the Romans
Latin was of course spoken by the Romans – a people who dominated the planet for much of the classical period. Classical Latin has survived through the literary works of scholarly Romans such as Virgil and Cicero and subsequently today you may find yourself casually using a Latin word or phrase without even realising its [...]
Blog categories
- Competitions and quizzes (27)
- Dictionaries and lexicography (121)
- English in use (317)
- Grammar and writing help (59)
- Interactive features (46)
- OED Appeals (4)
- Other languages (55)
- Varieties of English (30)
- Word origins (161)
- Word trends and new words (96)
