Or trousers for that matter, if you’re from the UK. I went with pants for the title simply because most of you, dear readers are American. Anyway, the burning question: why are these words so brazenly plural when they clearly refer to a single garment?
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.
Shine bright like a diamond,
– Rihanna, 2012.
How do you feel about the adjective brilliant? It seems to be a bit divisive. Like the word awesome, there are those who feel that it’s cheapened by being used as a general adjective of quality, to indicate that something is very good.
I understand that point of view, and I’ve argued previously that sometimes a strong adjective is just too strong for the situation, and a nice simple adjective often works well. That being said, the sheer positivity of words like awesome and brilliant can be infectious.
And while brilliant is now firmly established as a synonym for great, this is actually a fairly recent development.
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?
English-Language Thoughts 