Score!

Score is another of those very common words that have a surprising number of different uses. The most obvious use is as a verb in sport: you can score a goal or a point, for example. Of course it can also be a noun in terms of sport, such as in What’s the score? Less frequently though, we also encounter score to refer to the music from a film or television programme, and as verb meaning to cut or scratch a line on a surface. And a score can mean twenty. Despite all these different meanings though, each use of the word actually shares the same origin.

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To the Core

Another day, another Trump tweet, another nugget of stupidity. As if the Space Force Saturday-morning cartoon wasn’t enough, he then misspelled Marine Corps as Marine Core. At least though, it’s a somewhat understandable misspelling, the words sound the same, and in meaning the words corps and core are similar in a way.

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Space Force!

No political commentary needed, I think: space force says it all, doesn’t it? (unless you’re reading this in the future, in which case this is what I’m talking about)

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Don’t be so Patronizing!

I really feel like people should say this to me more often, because I do like to explain things, and that can come across as very patronizing! The curious thing about the verb to patronize by the way, is that, like many English words, it can have more than one meaning.

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Total Recall

Recall is an interesting word by virtue of how simple its etymology is.

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Super! Smashing! Great!

Writing a post inspired by a Smashing Pumpkins song recently got me thinking about that word smashing.

Specifically, how in British English it’s used to mean great or fantastic. What’s the link between the most common meaning of the word (crushing/breaking), and this use?

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Why is Peggy Short for Margaret?

What do these four women have in common?

Why, the fact that they all have the same name of course!

OK, they don’t really, but it’s not entirely inaccurate to say so. Why not? Read on…

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