I passed a poster for an event called Pandemonium this morning (I’m not sure what the event was, so I guess it’s not a very effective poster). That’s not a word I’ve given much attention to in the past, I thought, but looking at it now, does it mean what I think it means?
This is kind of a companion piece to yesterday’s post, being about obscure words none of us really use.
I’ve seen a lot of lists on social media and various websites about obscure words people need to be made aware of, or obsolete words which need to be brought back. For example, here’s a story I came across this morning on the BBC Culture website: Twenty-six words we don’t want to lose.
Here’s the full list of words from the article; see if you guess what one of my issues with the list might be:
Absolutely.
Writing yesterday’s post, I came to a point where I wanted to use the phrase racking their brain. A few words before I got to the point where I had to type it though, I paused: was it wracking their brain?
I’ve never been sure how to spell it, and it’s not something I often have to write, so I never had to look it up. At least until yesterday anyway, so to satisfy all our curiosity, here’s the answer…
The above photo is of a box I came across recently in a shop in Liège, and is a classic example of how literal translation will usually lead you astray.
“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?
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.
English-Language Thoughts 