Posts Tagged: mythology

Odyssey of Homer’s words

We went to see Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey on Tuesday (11 August 2026). We were a little disappointed after the high praise from many film critics. My wife and I thought it was entertaining but a little shallow and my son, who has studied ancient history at university, gave it 5/10. Some critics have suggested […]
Fairy smut and romantasies

While I was in England I was introduced to “fairy smut” by our niece (she is in her thirties by the way). Sometimes the world surprises you in ways that make you smile. Acotar—A Court of Thorns and Roses Invited to lunch, we asked Cate about her book collection. Rather sheepishly she told us most […]
Chron—time for a change

I am fascinated by the idea of the earth as a giant magnet for a couple of reasons. One is that what we call the North Pole is in fact the South Pole of the earth as a magnet (as you should know from school opposite poles attract and the north poles of magnets point […]
Bunyips, yowies and the Mulyawonk

Back on the 1st April 1977, I took a school mate to the Australian Museum in Sydney. We saw a bunyip skull in one of the display cases, which I thought was hilarious. However, my mate was convinced it was real—its April Fools Day, I said but he could not believe that a serious institution […]
Understanding zombies

What is a zombie? In Martinique and Haiti a zombie is the term for any spirit or ghost appearing at night. But the popular view is that a bokor or witch-doctor makes the victim appear dead by magic, hypnotic suggestion, or by a secret potion—and then revives them as their personal slave with their soul […]
Flibbertigibbet, a will-‘o-the-wisp, a clown

The misunderstanding In the heat of a moment, and what I thought was great foolhardiness, I called my wife a flibbertigibbet. I was cross with her for trying to do too many things at once and consequently getting nothing done. Surprisingly, she took it quite well, which made me think I had, perhaps, misunderstood what […]
Tears for the crocodile

I have just got back from a trip to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland with my family. While we were there we visited the Australia Zoo at Beerwah. It is, of course, famous as the “home of the Crocodile Hunter”, Steve Irwin. It is a great zoo and now a bit of a memorial for […]
Bear-shirted vikings go berserk

Beserk was a great warrior from Norse mythology. He didn’t fight in armor but in his bera serkr, literally bear shirt or bearskin in Old Norse. He gave his name to the berserks, the wild frenzied shock troops of the marauding Vikings.
The shining poetry of brag

A few weeks ago the word of the week was scold which we found had its origin from Icelandic poets with sharp tongues. The old poets may also have given us the word brag although its history is a lot less clear. The evolution of brag happened mostly outside English which makes the story a […]
Scolding poets

Modern day poets are often characterised as introverted, quiet sorts of people but once upon a time poets were powerful and their words feared by all men. Our word of the week is scold.
What does batrachomyomachia mean?

There really is such a word as batrachomyomachia. It is an obscure word and I can’t imagine how I would drop it into a conversation. I certainly wouldn’t be able to claim I was writing plain English if I used it in a business document. Nonetheless, it is a real word with an interesting history, […]
Memes and the forgotten goddess of memory

Meme is considered to be a recently created word used to describe the cultural impact of the Internet in transmitting particular ideas. However, it has a much older relative that shows that it is a very old concept with a very old name. According to Wikipedia, an Internet meme is: … a catchphrase or concept […]

Psychobabble—mental health jargon10/09/2026
Psychobabble is psychological jargon used inaccurately and pretentiously that sometimes normalises unacceptable behaviour or criticises normal behaviour. It is also known as therapy-speak or pop psychology. A more specialised branch of psychobabble is neurobabble. It is the vocabulary of the consulting room that has escaped into everyday conversation—trauma, triggered, boundaries, validation, gaslighting. It turns the… Read more: Psychobabble—mental health jargon
Meeting behaviours04/09/2026
Australian professionals are experienced and well-educated yet put them in meetings with clear objectives, agendas to address, or problems to solve and peculiar behaviours start to manifest. The Ringelmann effect suggests that the more people in a meeting the less value they contribute. Max Ringelmann discovered in the 1880s that as more people pulled on… Read more: Meeting behaviours
Danish and “Viking marketing”24/08/2026
In AD 793 the Viking Age was kicked off when Viking raiders attacked Lindisfarne, an island off the northeast coast of England, plundered its Christian monastery, killed or enslaved the monks and appropriated its religious treasures. The Vikings were undoubtedly accomplished shipbuilders, sailors and traders, but their economic model was simpler—to leverage the quality of… Read more: Danish and “Viking marketing”