I was reading The Devils of Loudon this afternoon, when the word confessor made me stop for a moment.
Hang on, I thought, logically you might assume a confessor is someone who makes a confession, who confesses to something. A teacher teaches, a writer writes, so logically a confessor confesses, no? Continue reading
Who?
Or what?
A lot of people were talking about Erskine May recently, mainly along the lines of those two questions above. So who, or what, is Erskine May? Continue reading
I learned recently about the existence of kangaroo words: words that contain the letters of a synonymous word (in the correct sequence) within themselves. Continue reading
I heard this word today, and I realised how strange it sounds. Especially when you could also say running. And I continued thinking: does jogging, the exercise, have anything to do with jogging your memory? Let’s see. Continue reading
I saw a video this morning entitled “Cute Dog Walks Themselves” (it’s a Sunday, I’m not busy). As is probably the case for you, the title seemed a little strange.
Dog, singular.
Themselves, plural.
The two shouldn’t really go together, should they? Continue reading
It was Pancake Tuesday recently, but that didn’t inspire much pondering in me. After all, pancake is just pan + cake. A cake you make in a pan. But a few days later I thought about the word again. Continue reading
You might know the song “Yankee Doodle,” even if you’re not American. One line might sound a little strange to you:
Stuck a feather in his cap, and called it macaroni.
Why macaroni? Continue reading
English-Language Thoughts 