I’ve been fortunate enough to have been nominated for two awards today (actually Tuesday 09/01/18), so I’ll answer the questions from both together.
Awards!
writing
Playwright
First of all, if you want to know about why today is called Boxing Day, I wrote about that here last year. If you didn’t read it then, I encourage you to do so. Even if you did read it last year, why not read it again? You might have forgotten all of the details. I know I have.
If you’re looking for something new though, how about a few brief lines about that curious word playwright?
What do a Chauffeur and Dracula Have in Common?
Stokers, that’s what. Let me explain…
Bring Back Nostalgia
This is kind of a companion piece to yesterday’s post, being about obscure words none of us really use.
I’ve seen a lot of lists on social media and various websites about obscure words people need to be made aware of, or obsolete words which need to be brought back. For example, here’s a story I came across this morning on the BBC Culture website: Twenty-six words we don’t want to lose.
Here’s the full list of words from the article; see if you guess what one of my issues with the list might be:
An Albatross Round your Neck
“God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!-
Why looks’t thou so?”-With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
This is one of the more unusual English idioms. It means a very heavy, psychological burden.
But why an albatross?
280 Characters in Search of a Tweet
…brevity is the soul of wit… – William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Twitter again. Now we can compose tweets of 280 characters on Twitter, double the previous limit. And I have to ask: why?
I’ve just Written this Post, and Twitter’s Response is Perfect!
English-Language Thoughts 