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
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
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
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
Being a response to the Daily Prompt: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/eclipse/
An interesting little word. If you were in some parts of Africa this week you would have borne witness to a solar eclipse this week, and next year Americans will have the same opportunity. There’s something about a solar eclipse that still fascinates us. Even now that we understand them, experiencing darkness during the middle of the day is still hard to get our heads round. It turns one of our most basic expectations about the world upside down. And I think it helps connect us with our primitive past (can you imagine what a total solar eclipse must have been like when it arrived without warning before people understood them and could predict them?), and makes us realise that for all our advances, there’s still so much that we can’t control. Continue reading
Sidewalk: at first glance, the words seems like an excellent to look at the differences between American and British English, with both footpath and pavement being used in British English.
What I’m more interested in though, is the word’s modernity (its first recorded use in the 18th century). I’m always curious about the etymology of words, and the long, meandering histories they can have. I’m fascinated by where words come from, how they evolve over time, and how they’re related to other words. But a modern word like sidewalk might seem to deny me that story. Neologisms like sidewalk require someone or some people to consciously coin a word, rather than it developing naturally over time. Continue reading
It feels like ages since I’ve written anything, but I’ve had a well-earned holiday. First a few days in Barcelona, which is a fantastic vibrant city full of great sights and food, which is really all I ask for.
I arrived back in Dublin on Sunday evening, but I didn’t go straight back to Galway. Instead, I extended my holiday with a few days in Northern Ireland. Even though it’s ridiculously close, it was actually only the second time I’ve crossed the border. I think the main reason for that is because when I was young, there were regularly stories about the violence and terrorism taking place there. Even though the situation’s vastly improved now and it’s all very peaceful up there, I think I’ve still been influenced by the less-than-attractive image of the region’s past. I think before I continue, a (very!) brief history is in order. Continue reading
English-Language Thoughts 