Out, Damn’d Spot!

I was thinking this morning that the word spot is one of those simple unassuming words that actually has a lot of quite different meanings, and can be used as verb and a noun.

I find it particularly interesting in that it began with a more abstract, poetic meaning, and later on came to be used in more mundane ways. Continue reading →

Dilettante

I was thinking yesterday about how I’m a bit of a dilettante when it comes to music. I like a lot of acts and genres, but I couldn’t narrow my preferences down to anything very particular. Continue reading →

Dear John…

…, why are you so expensive?

HA!

Terrible, I know, but sometimes bad jokes can be quite illuminating. Like when they help us to realise that we use the word dear in quite different ways. Continue reading →

Capital or Capitol?

Usually, it’s capital that you need. But sometimes, and specifically right now if you’re in the United States, capitol’s the word you’re looking for. Continue reading →

The Most Unkindest Cut of All

At some point yesterday I came across the expression in the title of this post. I can’t remember where exactly, but it’s a pretty common phrase. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen or heard it, but this time, something seemed strange. Then I realised what it was: the most unkindest cut!? Continue reading →

Outro

While running today, I thought that the song I was listening to in the moment perhaps wasn’t best suited to being on my running playlist, because it had a long, quiet outro. Then I thought, Outro? Now that’s… Continue reading →

YouTube

I can’t believe I never thought about this before, especially as I’ve already written about the origins of names of popular websites/social media. But I was mindlessly looking at my screen and saw YouTube written there.

This one’s not too hard to figure out if you’re of a certain vintage, or simply American. The You part, obviously is pretty straightforward: you can upload your videos to the website. But in what sense is it a tube? Continue reading →