Showing posts with label English curiosities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English curiosities. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Friday, January 19, 2018
Homophones
Homophones are words that are pronounced the same yet they are spelled differently and have different meanings.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Monday, March 21, 2016
Saturday, March 19, 2016
Homophones
Homophones are words that sound the same although they are written differently and differ in meanings.
Monday, February 8, 2016
On Time vs In Time
These expressions are very similar, but there is a slight difference in meaning.
On time
On time means that there is a specific time established when something is supposed/expected to happen, and it is happening at the planned time.
I want to start the meeting on time so please don’t be late.
The 11.45 train left on time.
In time
If we say we arrived in time, we’re saying that we got there a little early – that there was time to spare.
We often use the structure in time to do something:
We arrived in time to get some drinks before the show started.
Will you be home in time for dinner?
On time
On time means that there is a specific time established when something is supposed/expected to happen, and it is happening at the planned time.
I want to start the meeting on time so please don’t be late.
The 11.45 train left on time.
In time
If we say we arrived in time, we’re saying that we got there a little early – that there was time to spare.
We often use the structure in time to do something:
We arrived in time to get some drinks before the show started.
Will you be home in time for dinner?
taken from:
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Monday, January 4, 2016
How to Spell: Silent Letter Spelling Rules
How to spell: silent letters and why they aren't there to mess with your brain - honest.
Silent letters are the letters in words that are not pronounced but make a huge difference to the meaning and sometimes the pronunciation of the whole word.
The bad news is that more than 60% of English words have silent letters in them which can cause all sorts of problems spelling the word or looking for the word in a dictionary.
Silent letters are the letters in words that are not pronounced but make a huge difference to the meaning and sometimes the pronunciation of the whole word.
The bad news is that more than 60% of English words have silent letters in them which can cause all sorts of problems spelling the word or looking for the word in a dictionary.
Silent Letters
-Silent letters can distinguish between homophones, e.g. in/inn; be/bee; lent/leant. This is an aid to readers already familiar with both words.
-Silent letters may give an insight into the meaning or origin of a word, e.g. vineyard suggests vines more than the phonetic 'vinyard' would.
-Silent letters help to show long vowels e.g. rid/ride
-Silent letters help to show 'hard' consonants e.g. guest/gest
-They can help to connect different forms of the same word e.g. resign/resignation.
taken from:
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Christmas or Xmas?
Christmas is also sometimes known as Xmas. Some people don't think it's correct to call Christmas 'Xmas' as that takes the 'Christ' (Jesus) out of Christmas. (As Christmas comes from Christ-Mass, the Church service that celebrated the birth of Jesus.)
But that is not quite right! In the Greek language and alphabet, the letter that looks like an X is the Greek letter chi / Χ (pronounced 'kye' - it rhymes with 'eye') which is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, Christos.
The early church used the first two letters of Christos in the Greek alphabet 'chi' and 'rho' to create a monogram (symbol) to represent the name of Jesus. This looks like an X with a small p on the top: ☧
The symbol of a fish is sometimes used by Christians (you might see a fish sticker on a car or someone wearing a little fish badge). This comes from the time when the first Christians had to meet in secret, as the Romans wanted to kill them (before Emperor Constantine became a Christian). Jesus had said that he wanted to make his followers 'Fishers of Men', so people started to use that symbol.
When two Christians met, one person drew half a basic fish shape (often using their foot in the dust on the ground) and the other person drew the other half of the fish. The Greek word for fish is 'Ikthus' or 'Ichthys'. There are five Greek letters in the word. It can also make up a sentence of Christian beliefs 'Ie-sous Christos Theou Huios So-te-r' which in English means "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour". The second letter of these five letter is X or Christos!
So Xmas can also mean Christmas; but it should also be pronounced 'Christmas' rather than 'ex-mas'!
But that is not quite right! In the Greek language and alphabet, the letter that looks like an X is the Greek letter chi / Χ (pronounced 'kye' - it rhymes with 'eye') which is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, Christos.
The early church used the first two letters of Christos in the Greek alphabet 'chi' and 'rho' to create a monogram (symbol) to represent the name of Jesus. This looks like an X with a small p on the top: ☧
The symbol of a fish is sometimes used by Christians (you might see a fish sticker on a car or someone wearing a little fish badge). This comes from the time when the first Christians had to meet in secret, as the Romans wanted to kill them (before Emperor Constantine became a Christian). Jesus had said that he wanted to make his followers 'Fishers of Men', so people started to use that symbol.
So Xmas can also mean Christmas; but it should also be pronounced 'Christmas' rather than 'ex-mas'!
taken from:
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Words that Come from Literary Characters
#1: Quixotic
Definition:
: idealistic and utterly impractical; especially : marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or chivalrous action doomed to fail
About the Word:
The novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes (published in 1605 and 1615), is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of literature ever. It also has given us a small, but useful, batch of words and phrases for describing that special kind of person who is unencumbered by common sense and the notion that grand gestures are often impractical.
Definition:
: an uncouth or rowdy person
: idealistic and utterly impractical; especially : marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or chivalrous action doomed to fail
About the Word:
The novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes (published in 1605 and 1615), is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of literature ever. It also has given us a small, but useful, batch of words and phrases for describing that special kind of person who is unencumbered by common sense and the notion that grand gestures are often impractical.
#2: Yahoo
Definition:: an uncouth or rowdy person
About the Word:
Yahoo comes to the English language from the fertile imagination of Jonathan Swift, author of the famed Gulliver's Travels (as well as the somewhat less-remembered Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue).
In Gulliver's Travels the Yahoos were an imaginary humanoid race, brutish and uncouth. This book was also responsible for introducing the words Lilliputian and brobdingnagian.
#3: Pooh-bah
Definition:1 : one holding many public or private offices
2 a : one in high position
b : one who gives the impression of being a person of importance
About the Word:
Readers of a certain age might be excused for thinking that the pooh-bah comes from the cartoon series The Flintstones. That show occasionally featured a 'grand poobah', who was a high-ranking member of a secret society. However, the roots of pooh-bah extend far beyond Saturday morning cartoons.
It originated in the Gilbert and Sullivan 1885 comic opera, The Mikado. The character of that name finds himself in possession of a wide variety of positions and offices, and is dubbed Lord-High-Everything-Else.
#4: Pander
Definition:: someone who caters to and often exploits the weaknesses of others
About the Word:
Pander has undergone a bit of what linguists and other wordy types like to call "pejoration," the process by which a word's meaning and connotation goes downhill.
The initial meaning in English was in reference to someone who acted as a go-between for a pair of lovers, a facilitator of romance. The word entered our language in this sense as an alteration for the name of a character (Pandare) in Chaucer's classic poem Troilus and Criseyde; Pandare assisted the lovers in this poem in their romance. However, soon after the word began to take on slightly...less noble shades.
Pander began to be used as a term for a pimp, or a person who procured the services of a prostitute. After this it broadened to include any person who helped satisfy any one of a number of questionable urges.
#5: Gargantuan
Definition:
: of tremendous size or volume
About the Word:
Gargantuan comes from the title character of the 1535 satire by Rabelais, Gargantua.
In this work, Gargantua is a giant with a ravening appetite (eating, for instance, six pilgrims in a salad). The name appears to have been first converted into an adjective in 1596, by Thomas Nash
#6: Serendipity
Definition:
: an assumed gift for finding valuable or agreeable things not sought forAbout the Word:
Serendipity was the creation of Horace Walpole, the famed 18th-century English writer, who is known both for authorship of the first Gothic novel in English (The Castle of Otranto) and for having a lifelong obsession with writing letters (more than a thousand of which were to Horace Mann).
#7: Malapropism
Definition:: a blundering use of a word that sounds somewhat like the one intended but is ludicrously wrong in the context
About the Word:
Richard Sheridan, the Irish dramatist, is responsible for the word malapropism, as it is based on the name of a character, Mrs. Malaprop, who appears in his 1775 play,The Rivals.
#8: Milquetoast
Definition:: a timid, meek, or apologetic person
About the Word:
Comic strips may not seem like the most likely source to have provided English with new words, but they have actually been quite fertile in this regard.
Milquetoast is one such word: it comes from the name of Caspar Milquetoast, a character invented by cartoonist H. T. Webster in 1924 for his strip Timid Soul (it was based on milk toast, a dish of toast softened in milk). Comic strips have also given us the word dagwood (a comically large sandwich, named after Dagwood Bumstead, from the comic Blondie), and it is likely that goon (a thuggish man) was largely taken from the character Alice the Goon in the comic strip Thimble Theatre in the early 20th century.
#9: Micawber
Definition:: an improvident person who lives in expectation of an upturn in his fortunes
About the Word:
Wilkins Micawber was an eternally optimistic and frequently impoverished character from Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, published as a serial novel in 1849 and 1850.
#10: Panglossian
Definition:: marked by the view that all is for the best in this best of possible worlds
About the Word:
Master Pangloss, the tutor for the titular character of Voltaire's novelCandide, was prone to making such pronouncements as "they, who assert that everything is right, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best."
The novel, a satire on the subject of philosophical optimism, is Voltaire's best-known work. In large part due to this popularity the fictional tutor has seen his name forever associated with unfettered and irrational optimism.
taken from:
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Monday, July 20, 2015
Palindromes
Palindrome: a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of symbols or elements, whose meaning may be interpreted the same way in either forward or reverse direction. Famous examples include “Amore, Roma“, “A man, a plan, a canal: Panama” and “No ‘x’ in ‘Nixon’“. Composing literature in palindromes is an example of constrained writing. The word “palindrome” was coined from the Greek roots palin (“again”) and dromos (“way, direction”) by the English writer Ben Jonson in the 17th century.
Some fun sentences:
Dogma: I am God
Never odd or even
Too bad – I hid a boot
Rats live on no evil star
No trace; not one carton
Was it Eliot's toilet I saw?
Murder for a jar of red rum
May a moody baby doom a yam?
A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal-Panama!
Sunday, May 10, 2015
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