A great discovery has been made by Dr Paul Booth, a fellow of Keele University. It is a 14th-century example of fuck. We might think the word Anglo-Saxon, but it’s hard to find written examples before the 16th century. Chaucer never uses it. The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is in a poem
‘Tweeting’s like text messaging, isn’t it?’ said my husband confidently, though not, as usual, from any knowledge of the matter. I find the register of language in tweets interesting. The tweeter in his own right must assume an easy tone, quite different from that of the niggling troll. As far as style goes, I was
In a wonderfully dry manual of theology on my husband’s bookshelves, written in Latin and printed in Naples in the 1830s, there is a discussion of whether ‘rustics and idiots’ are supported in their belief by ‘motives of credibility’, such as miracles. The same question has been asked about belief in Jeremy Corbyn, except that
Al Jazeera, the Qatari broadcaster, is going to use refugee instead of migrant in its English output. ‘The umbrella term migrant is no longer fit for purpose when it comes to describing the horror unfolding in the Mediterranean,’ one of its editors explained. ‘It has evolved from its dictionary definitions into a tool that dehumanises
We reached peak Charlie in 2012, when 5,571 baby boys were given the name. There were only 4,642 last year. Perhaps the Paris massacre early this year will leave more infants than ever lisping ‘Je suis Charlie’ when they learn to talk. Names go in waves. In the Office for National Statistics list of last year’s
There was a time when my husband, who often addresses the television, would habitually react to Edward Heath’s appearance on the screen with the greeting ‘Hello, sailor.’ Last week, though, the man who was Sir Edward’s principal private secretary during his time as prime minister, Robert Armstrong, now Lord Armstrong, commented on the posthumous accusations
Toxic virus or Taleban: it’s funny how the mild-mannered Liz Kendall has attracted for her Blairite associations the most violently pejorative terms. Hardly had the Labour leadership contest begun before her allies were being called ‘Taleban New Labour’. No one thought New Labour was really much like the Taleban. That’s why the metaphor was effective:
‘That’s unnecessarily crude,’ said my husband, turning momentarily from the television and improving the shining minute by setting the whisky glass chinking. (He takes ice in it.) ‘What? A “big ask”? That’s not crude,’ I replied. ‘Oh, ask,’ he said in a sort of liquid-hoarse whisky-throaty voice seldom remarked upon by phoneticians. He was watching
I had never heard the Country (Red Dirt) singer Wade Bowen before, although his latest album Hold my Beer (Vol 1) has already sold 14,000 copies. On an earlier album, he provided textbook examples of two constructions that I find increasingly annoying, and one that seems fine. ‘I love it that you’re my girl,’ sang Wade.
‘What about the moon Tracey?’ asked my husband facetiously when an astronomer on the wireless, talking of Pluto’s moon Charon, pronounced it ‘Sharon’. As usual, things turn out not to be so simple as my husband’s understanding of them. Everyone knows that Pluto was named in 1930 by an 11-year-old girl, Venetia Burney. Her mother,
If my husband were an insect it might well be a bug — a squat creature imbibing nutriment in liquid form. I had not taken much notice of bugs in an otherwise full life, and am surprised to learn there are nearly 2,000 species of British bugs. The point I should like to make is that
A village has changed its name because it seemed offensive. But I think the villagers were under a misapprehension. The village is in Spain: Castrillo Matajudíos. Of its population of 57, 29 voted to change the name to Castrillo Mota de Judíos because they did not like the idea of the former name meaning ‘Kill
No doubt you, too, have had the feeling, upon glancing at an article in a paper picked up in a train or café, that it might mean something to someone, but it means nothing to you. I read this sentence in the Times the other day: ‘Not everyone builds an M&A machine on the back
‘A stalker who dressed a pillow “mannequin” in his ex’s nurse’s uniform, then sent her a picture, has been told he is “on the cusp” of jail,’ reported the Scottish edition of the Daily Star. ‘Sheriff Alastair Carmichael told Mark Glass: “I don’t think you understand just how serious this is. You are on the
The next Labour leader will have to be able to speak human, said a piece in the Observer. This, it argued, is because Ed Miliband was taunted for always speaking like a policy wonk. What short memories members of the commentariat have. In 2010 Ed Miliband was being praised by supporters on the grounds that
A notion is going about that, just as readers of film reviews receive spoiler alerts, so readers of anything should get a trigger warning. Otherwise something nasty in the woodshed might trigger post-traumatic stress disorder or worse. ‘I use the phrase trigger warning myself,’ wrote Kate Maltby in a Spectator blog the other day, ‘to
‘Aa-aah,’ groaned my husband, ‘we fade to grey.’ He had never been much of a Young Romantic, even when Visage was vigorous. I had merely told him that Oxford Dictionaries have added to their online collection the phrase brain fade. In April, when David Cameron said that he supported West Ham, having previously assured the world
Like a reluctantly remembered nightmare, last week’s Eurovision Song Contest already seems very distant. But, in the manner of the Sand people in Star Wars, the nations of Eurovision will no doubt soon be back, and in greater numbers. Disappointingly, with scarcely an alien tongue displayed apart from Montenegrin, the chosen language was poor English.
Benidorm has applied for World Heritage status. To achieve this, says Unesco, a site must have ‘outstanding universal value’ in one of ten natural or cultural categories. Perhaps Benidorm is ‘a masterpiece of human creative genius’ — clever to get all those people to go there on holiday. Heritage is overdone now, especially as an
I was interested by the widespread annoyance at the use of progressive by the lefty parties before the election. Irritation is not the essence of a love of language (philology), but it is a symptom. The suspicion here was that socialism is so pejorative that a euphemism was being sought. It is true that when