No, I didn’t, sorry, I never watch it.
I’m referring here of course to popular BBC Saturday-evening dance programme Strictly Come Dancing (translated into American English as Dancing with the Stars). It’s often referred to simply as Strictly, but if you step back and think about it, isn’t that a little odd?
“God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!-
Why looks’t thou so?”-With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
This is one of the more unusual English idioms. It means a very heavy, psychological burden.
But why an albatross?
…is good for the gander.
A gander of course, being a male goose. And what’s the term for a female goose?
Continuing a vague theme about gender in language, I want to look a little at the few gendered words we have in English.
I mentioned recently that actor/actress is still a distinction we often make. There’s waiter/waitress too. And that’s basically it.
There are some specifically female forms that have relatively recently fallen out of favour. Stewardess and manageress, for example. Generally though, we’ve been content to use gender-neutral terms.
Today is 11 November, Armistice Day, on which we commemorate the end of the First World War. Or, World War I. That’s how we refer to the conflict now, but it’s actually had surprisingly many names.
…brevity is the soul of wit… – William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Twitter again. Now we can compose tweets of 280 characters on Twitter, double the previous limit. And I have to ask: why?
English-Language Thoughts 