Posts Tagged: best words

  • Roman centurions Floccinaucinihilipilification is a combination of four Latin words flocci, nauci, nihili, & pilifi.

    Floccinaucinihilipilification and the Eton Latin Grammar

    One of the words in contention for the longest word in the English language is floccinaucinihilipilification. It is pronounced flahk-si-naw-si-ni-hi-li-pi-li-fi-kay-shên. Words like floccinaucinihilipilification support my idea that words don’t just develop as tools to describe what is around us. Instead people love to use words to play with language—we celebrate the exuberance of words and use […]

  • IMAGE: codpiece on funerary statue. Meaning: The rather mundane word, bracket, has a sexier history than you would expect from something found in a hardware store.

    Not so square bracket

    The rather mundane word, bracket, has a sexier history than you might expect. A word that changes its meaning can be either an example of melioration, where the word takes on a more favorable connotation or deterioration where it takes on a more negative association. So how will we describe the change in the Spanish word, bragueta (from which English has borrowed bracket), which was initially a word for codpiece but became used for the object that holds up a shelf?

  • It's a zarf. Tim Entwisle with a zarf.

    It’s a zarf!

    Recently I went out with some friends for dinner. They had chosen a Turkish restaurant in Newtown, in the Inner West of Sydney, very appropriately called Ottoman’s. We ordered too much of the delightful food. Feeling a bit gorged we decided to have a Turkish coffee at the restaurant rather than going to a nearby […]

  • Mickle is a Yorkshire word still found in place names Micklethwaite (meaning great piece of land or meadow), Micklegate in York (great street) and Mickle Fell (great mountain or hill).

    MICKLE—a once great word

    Many a mickle makes a muckle, is a saying from the north of England (1). In Scotland: a wheen o’ mickles mak’s a muckle was recorded in the late 19th century (2). A Jamaican website reports a current Jamaican saying as: Every mickle mek a mockle (3). Mickle is a very old word which has survived fossil-like […]

  • zugzwang - Arthur Bisguier from https://worldchesshof.org/hof-inductee/arthur-bernard-bisguier

    Zugzwang

    Zugzwang In the dictionary between zounds and zulu  you may find zugzwang. It is a recent migrant from German and has not quite made it into all English language dictionaries. However it is a very useful word and I am certainly ready to embrace it. It has a spelling that would makes Scrabble players squirm with […]

  • Widdershins Childe Roland runs around the church

    The magic of widdershins

    In the ancient folklore of pagan Britain, to go widdershins (widershins or withershins) was, in a magical sense, to walk around an object against the sun. In the northern hemisphere to walk the opposite way to the movement of the sun, was to walk around an object counter-clockwise.

  • Exposing tasteless pornification

    I read a story recently (this was originally written in 2009) about outrage over a former children’s performer appearing in Ralph magazine. Kellie Crawford, who had appeared on the children’s program Hi5 for ten years, had posed in lingerie for the May Edition of Ralph magazine. It caused great concern to Julia Gale from Kids Free 2B Kids who […]

  • Wassailing's most common meaning is door-to-door Christmas carol singing - a common practice in England.

    Wassailing—be healthy at Christmas

    Behind the modern rituals of Christmas lurk old traditions tied to our magical, pagan past. Words provide a link to that magic. We have looked at Yule, a word that predates most native languages of Europe. Wassailing is our Christmas word. Wassail arrived in English from the Old Norse salutation ves heill meaning “be healthy” from […]

  • Technically, in astronomy, a syzygy is the conjunction or opposition of two heavenly bodies (the Sun, Moon or planets) in a straight line relative to the earth.

    Syzygy obscured

    Rare word for rare event This week (10 Dec 2008)  the word, syzygy,  had an opportunity to come out of obscurity and shine brightly. However, the opportunity was lost in the clouds. On Monday of last week the Sydney Morning Herald reported on a rare event. Dr Nick Lomb, the Sydney Observatory’s astronomer was predicting […]