Imagine, completely hypothetically, that the President of Russia had information he could use to blackmail the President of the United States. Crazy, I know, but reading about this possibility recently made me think about the word blackmail. Continue reading
I was rooting through my George Orwell books this weekend, and realised that it had been a long time since I read his account of of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and grabbed it. It was only today at work when I questioned whether the title was a strange one.
Was it A Homage to Catalonia?
Or An Homage to Catalonia?
A minor difference, perhaps, but also perhaps all the difference in the world. Continue reading
Speaking, as I was yesterday, of remakes and adapatations, I see there’s another Robin Hood film out at the moment. Continue reading
This word is thrown about a lot lately, whenever anyone tries to bring back a beloved film or TV programme. There are of course a few other similar re- words in use, so what’s the difference between them all? Continue reading
You might have heard of the Ig Nobel Prize: an annual award for trivial or unusual scientific research. The name of course is a play on both the Nobel Prize and the word ignoble. I read something about the Ig Nobel Prize today, and then thought about the word ignoble, specifically:
Ignoble? That’s weird, isn’t it? Continue reading
It’s the epitome of surfer-dude slang: totally gnarly dude!
Thinking about the word today though, it seemed a strange fit for surfing slang. Surely, I thought, it’s related to gnarled, as in knobbly, rough, or twisted. Not how you’d describe a wave really, is it? Continue reading
I’m writing this from a hotel room. The word hotel can be traced back to the Old French word ostel, which of course is also the origin of the word hostel. And, it might surprise you, hospital. Continue reading
English-Language Thoughts 