English language

Oh, Banning Sarcasm, That’s a REALLY Good Idea!!

Niall O'Donnell 3 Comments

You may have read in the news recently that Kim Jong-un wants to ban sarcasm in North Korea, as he fears that people only agree with him ironically.

First of all, I have to congratulate him on his grasp of irony. As I’ve written about before, it can be a tricky concept that people often struggle to get their heads round. So that he understands that sarcasm is a form of irony gives me some degree of satisfaction. It doesn’t make up for everything he’s done, but at least it goes to show that not everyone is completely evil. Continue reading →

It was a Stormy and Dark Night…

Niall O'Donnell 20 Comments

Sounds strange, doesn’t it, that title? Of course, it should be It was a Dark and Stormy night… But why? The information is the exact same in both, so why does our brain insist that dark has to come before stormy? First of all, I want you to look at something near you. Anything at all. Now, describe it out loud in one sentence, using as many adjectives as you can. Don’t overthink it.

You might have come up with something like me: a small, black, analogue watch, or a thin black Toshiba laptop, or a tall, clear glass. Now try changing the order of the adjectives you chose. It sounds wrong, doesn’t it. And that’s because there’s a rule that all native-speakers follow without thinking about it, or even knowing about it at all. That rule determines the order of types of adjectives we use. The correct order is as follows: Continue reading →

Affairs of the Heart

Niall O'Donnell 5 Comments

Why do have such reverence for the heart? Yes, it’s functioning is necessary for survival, but that’s true for our other organs too. At the end of the day, it’s a big fleshy pump that sends blood around the body (I think that’s how it’s described in Gray’s Anatomy).

It’s important, but the number of idioms we have that refer to it seem quite out of proportion, compared to how often we refer to other parts of the body. The following is just a small fraction of the heart-related idioms listed at thefreedictionary.com: Continue reading →

Liebster Award!

Niall O'Donnell 8 Comments

A great big thank you to jd126 at Dads View Points for nominating me for the Liebster Award. I highly recommend you check out his blog for a wonderfully varied range of posts about challenges, curiosities, fun, and hilarity of life, from, of course, a Dad’s viewpoint.

As per the award’s rules, here are 11 facts about me: Continue reading →

Good God, it’s the Evil Devil!

Niall O'Donnell 13 Comments

Add an o to the middle of God and what do you get? If you think that’s cool, try taking the D from Devil!

A neat little trick, one of those little things people use to show how apparently obvious things can go unnoticed right beneath our noses. Of course God is only one letter from good! But is there anything to the similarities between these words? Continue reading →

Campaign Supernova

Niall O'Donnell 6 Comments

I’ve encountered the word campaign so often later (generally preceded by presidential), and then, last week, I found myself camping for a few days. And I wondered: camp/campaign: are they related somehow? And how was it that the word campaign is so similar to words for countryside like campagna (Italian) campagne (French, and no Autocorrect, I didn’t mean champagne)? An investigation was in order, so down the etymology rabbit hole I went… Continue reading →

Fall Back, Autumn… Something…

Niall O'Donnell 6 Comments

Reading through the blogs that I follow, I’ve noticed that the subject of many of them is the fall. That melancholy time when the leaves change colour, the tourists fade away, and the evenings gradually get that little bit darker each day. It’s a beautiful time of year in many ways, but, not being American, whenever I see the word fall, I hesitate for a brief moment before I realise what people mean. Because of course, I say autumn, not fall. Why do we have these two, very different, words? Continue reading →