Posts Tagged: literature

  • Picture of young woman in Regency dress with caption VEX—to cause difficulty to someone, or to cause someone to feel angry, annoyed, or upset. AI generated illustration.

    Vex and vexation

    In 2025 we celebrate the 250 anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. Today (24 January 2025) I do want to talk about something more uplifting than the inauguration of Donald Trump, a man not lacking in pride or prejudice (… it is a truth universally acknowledged, that talentless men in possession of large fortunes, will more […]

  • Portrait of Franz Kafka. 2024 marks the centenary of the death of Franz Kafka who died 3 June 1924. His unique works have given us the adjective “Kafkaesque”

    What does it mean to be Kafkaesque?

    Kafka centenary As 2024 is nearing its end I have just discovered that an important milestone has almost passed by uncelebrated. This year marks the centenary of the death of Franz Kafka who died 3 June 1924 from tuberculosis at the age of 40. And while we sometimes see the adjective “Kafkaesque” thrown around in […]

  • Burgess explained to the New Yorker how he named the book: 'I first heard the expression “as queer as a clockwork orange” in a London pub before the Second World War. It is an old Cockney slang phrase, implying a queerness or madness so extreme as to subvert nature, since could any notion be more bizarre than that of a clockwork orange?’ AI generated image

    Nadsat and A Clockwork Orange

    Today is the anniversary of the death of Anthony Burgess, the English novelist (22 November 1993). His most famous work is A Clockwork Orange published in 1962 and made famous by Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film. The novel uses Burgess’ made-up slang, called Nadsat, as the characters’ language. Burgess explained to the New Yorker how he […]

  • Ethan Slater plays Boq the munchkin in Wicked to be released 21 November in Australia.

    Ethan Slater is a munchkin

    I came across an article recently spruiking Ethan Slater’s role as Boq, a munchkin in the new film “Wicked” an adaptation of the Broadway musical about good and bad witches based on the Wizard of Oz. The film will be released in Australia. 21 November 2024. The word “munchkin” was a creation of L. Frank […]

  • Winston Smith, the main character of 1984, lives in an Orwellian future of doublespeak.

    Orwellian, newspeak and doublethink

    Seventy-five years ago (8 June 1949), George Orwell’s book “1984” was published. It is set in a dystopian, totalitarian future. Written in 1948 Orwell transcribed  the year to 1984 (26 years into his future, now 40 years in history). Orwell introduced a set of new words and phrases to describe how governments manipulated and controlled […]

  • Goth woman on some neo-gothic steps

    Roman revenge and gothic revival

    An introduction to the goths Being gothic seems to be a common thing. We have gothic and neo-gothic architecture; gothic fonts; gothic literature and even in my youth a Goth post-punk music sub-culture. I lived in London in the mid to late 1980s. I was persuaded to go out one Friday night, straight after work […]

  • Jabberwocky is a piece of verse written by English poet Lewis Carroll in 1871. Although the poem is one of the most famous in English literature, it is labelled a piece of "nonsense" verse which rather conceals its brilliance. Indeed the word jabberwock has become a synonym for nonsense verse.

    Jabberwocky—brilliant nonsense

    What is Jabberwocky? Jabberwocky is a piece of verse written by English poet Lewis Carroll in 1871. The poem appears in his book, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. It was the sequel to the famous Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Although the poem is one of the most famous and well-loved in […]

  • IMAGE: Modified from The Winged Monkeys carrying Dorothy, The Tin Man, and The Cowardly Lion, as illustrated by W.W. Denslow in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” (1900). Wikimedia Commons.

    Flying monkeys—pets for narcissists

    There is an area where academic analysis and the layman’s understanding of mental health issues converge. In this crossover place, there is a rich vocabulary that uses metaphors from popular culture. The words and phrases we use to describe them often have some underlining wit. This perhaps helps us to cope with what can be unpleasant […]

  • Crime fiction sub-genres - cosy and noir

    How do you like your murder?

    My wife is fan of English murder mysteries and for her birthday recently one of her friends gave her a boxed-set of the first eight seasons of Midsomer Murders.  She was excited, however, the rest of us were not looking forward to the prospect of having to sit through fifty episodes of murder at the village fete. I […]

  • A tropical paradise (the Maldives)

    Paradise renamed

    And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; … And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis […]

  • Young ladies in their knickers

    Knickers, bloomers and drawers

    I love the British word, knickers, for ladies underpants. It has a gentle naughtiness without being vulgar. In Britain it has surpassed all its rivals: smalls, briefs, panties, bloomers and completely replaced its predecessor, drawers. In Australia we tend to talk about pants or panties (as does the US) although knickers is gaining some ground. […]

  • Charles Macklin (1699-1797) LEFT and Samuel Foote (1720 –1777) RIGHT—the great panjandrum

    Do you remember the Grand Panjandrum?

    In my word-of-the week I love exploring the way a word has been created or adopted into English. I do try to avoid obscure words if they are  specialised or only being used by people who are showing off. However, if the story behind a word is whimsical enough I will make an exception. So it is with […]