WORLD WIDE WORDS
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Fandangle A fandangle may be a useless or purely ornamental thing. It may also refer to something nonsensical, foolish or silly: “A big white wedding is a huge fandangle for not much return. The guests carp about their placement ...
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Haywire Our modern sense of haywire is an interesting example of semantic drift. In the US of the latter part of the nineteenth century, hay wire (also commonly called baling wire, which is now what people usually call it) was literally ...
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All my eye and Betty Martin The phrase or saying, all my eye and Betty Martin means that something is total and complete nonsense. It is found in British English from the eighteenth century on, but is hardly known today. It ...
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Yale; Two Australian expressions; Devo-max; Toploftical; Have no truck with; Plat; Marmalise; Paraprosdokian; Words of 2011; Yedsirag; Waywiser; Myrmidon; Gremial; Toodle-pip; Gobemouche; Weight of public opinion; From Elvish to Klingon; Reverse ferret; Beat; Thrasonical; Siccity; Wrack or rack?; Naysayer; Plan B; Egg somebody on; Tourbillion; Ecdysiast; Wildcat strike; Knock seven bells out of someone; Cascabel; Burden of one's song; Tundra; Gainsay; Idioticon; Wanion; Punt; Beck and call.
The next website update
The next update to this site is due on 11 February 2012. You should then be able to read about the old culinary term standing pie and the linguistic legacy of Charles Dickens. If you had subscribed to my e-magazine, you would already have seen them, and more.
About World Wide Words
The English language is forever changing. New words appear; old ones fall out of use or change their meanings. World Wide Words tries to record at least some part of this shifting wordscape by featuring new words, word histories, the background to words in the news, and the curiosities of native English speech.
This site is the archive of pieces that have appeared in the free e-magazine. Weekly issues include much more than appears here, including discussion by readers, serendipitous encounters with unfamiliar language, and tongue-in-cheek tut-tuttings at errors perpetrated by sloppy writers.