vocabulary

Meh…

Niall O'Donnell 10 Comments

Meh…

Is there a better word to sum up the malaise of modern youth, jaded and overexposed to such a variety of media, and unable to express their apathy towards the world with anything more articulate than a simple three-letter utterance!?

To be honest, I think that’s a little unfair on this generation. While it might seem like an obviously modern word, meh might have a fairly long history. It seems that the word might be Yiddish in origin, as there are records of an exclamation mnyeh meaning either “be it as it may” or “so so,” going back at least to the late 19th century. Continue reading →

Nice!

Niall O'Donnell 15 Comments

He’s a pretty nice guy.

Oh, that’s a nice picture of the two of you!

The food there is quite nice.

Nice is a word that’s come in for a lot of criticism. It’s quiet common to hear people say they hate it because it’s too weak, too soft: too nice. There are so many specific adjectives in English to describe something you like, they argue, that it’s a shame not to use them.

And I see their point. English is an incredibly extensive language, and it can be frustrating when people don’t make the most of the opportunities it affords them, and use the same words over and over.

And yet: sometimes something is just… nice. It’s not amazing, it’s not incredible, it’s not transcendent: it’s nice. It’s great to have all those adjectives at one’s disposal, but it’s important to select the best times to use them. Continue reading →

Come on Wales!

Niall O'Donnell 5 Comments

To celebrate the historic occasion of Wales playing tonight in the semi-finals of their first ever European Championship, I want to write something short about English words of Welsh origin. Short, because there aren’t that many! I think this is largely because Welsh both looks and sounds so different from English that it’s different for Welsh words to enter the English language. But there are a few, such as… Continue reading →

Trust Me, I’m a Doctor

Niall O'Donnell 9 Comments

—Is there a doctor on the plane!?

—Yes, I’m a doctor!

—Oh thank God, come quick, I think he’s having a heart attack!

—Oh, I’m not a medical doctor. I have a PhD in medieval French literature. It’s quite interesting actually. You see…

Why do we use doctor in two such different ways in English? What’s the link between a physician and a top-level academic? Looking at the origin of the word, it comes from the Medieval Latin doctor meaning religious adviser, teacher, or scholar. You can still observe that meaning in modern words such as doctrine or indoctrination. Towards the end of the 16th century, doctor began to replace the much older word leech, meaning physician. Continue reading →

Cool!

Niall O'Donnell 8 Comments

I’ve written before about how we use words and phrases associated with temperature, and specifically heat, in the English language. Today, I was struck by the word cool, and how it seems to contradict, yet also agree with, some of these words and phrases.

If we consider that we often associate heat with excessive passion and anger, coolness makes sense, describing someone who doesn’t get angry or overly excited easily; who keeps calm and doesn’t get stressed or worried.

And yet, it’s a short step from there to being cold: unfriendly, uncaring and unkind. Things get very confusing when we start talking about blood. Being hot-blooded means getting angry and excited very quickly, and in contrast, a cold-blooded individual is cruel, emotionless, pitiless. They’re at opposite ends of a spectrum, and equally undesirable because of it. One can be harmful to themselves and others by being too quick to anger. On the other hand, one can be so devoid of feeling for other people that they’re willing to do any number of harmful things to them, or fail to intervene, simply because the plight of others stirs no emotion in them. Continue reading →

Eat, Drink, Have

Niall O'Donnell 5 Comments

Imagine the situation:

An English-School classroom, with a Beginner or Elementary class. The teacher has put a picture of someone with a glass of water to their lips.

—What is she doing?

—She is… drinking the water.

—Yes, very good! Now, next…

The teacher now displays an image of someone sitting down to a meal.

—Ok, now can somebody tell me what this person is doing?

—Eating.

—Yes, very good! So, we eat…

—food.

—Yes, and we drink…

—uh, drinks.

—Yes, excellent!

That might seem pretty logical. To eat and To drink are two very common, basic verbs, and students need to understand exactly what they mean and how to use them, don’t they? Well, yes, but how do we really use these two verbs? How often do we really use them? Continue reading →

Click

Niall O'Donnell 3 Comments

Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten what you went in there for? I do that all the time, and had my first experience of the blogging equivalent tonight.

I don’t plan my blog posts too far in advance. Usually when I sit at my computer, something I’d heard or thought about that day will come to mind, or something that I’ve always thought about will leap out at me.

But sometimes an idea for something to write about will come to me, but knowing I won’t do it that day, I’ll make a note of it, and add it to an ever-growing list of topics for future posts. Occasionally I’ll have a look at this list and choose something to write about. I decided to do that tonight, and one word caught my attention straight away:

Click. Continue reading →