ta
Bill Batziakas, Athenian teacher, writes: ‘I would like to be informed about ‘ta ta’ (which is used instead of ‘goodbye’).…
Category: Word Stories
The missing “u”
It’s tempting to overplay the differences between US and UK English. Indeed, the linguist Henry Sweet predicted in 1877 that…
Neighbour
G.K. Chesterton (English writer of the early 20th century and creator of the ‘Father Brown’ stories) said that ‘the Bible tells…
antidisestablishmentarianism
Although the OED contains both pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (a lung disease) and floccipaucinihilipilification (the act of estimating as worthless), antidisestablishmentarianism is probably…
Cricket
The late comedian Robin Williams once described cricket as ‘baseball on Valium’. Although it’s not a massively popular sport in…
Sycophant
My e-mailbag this month contains a complaint from Yiannis Iliopoulos of Kozani, who berates me in most polite terms for…
Word Stories: handsome
Those of us who are not cut out to be supermodels may well agree with the old English proverb that…
Word Stories: okay
While planning a new product in 1994, the Coca-Cola company found that Coca-Cola was the second most recognisable term across…
Word Stories: ye
You don’t have to go far in England, particularly in the south, to find somewhere selling over-priced tea and scones…
Word Stories: go
Here goes. I’m going to have a go at dealing with go, one of the commonest, and most complicated, verbs…