World Wide Words

NEW FROM THE E-MAGAZINE THIS WEEK

Bull in a china shop It’s still common, though rarely meaning reckless destruction of a physical kind. More usually, it’s a way to express a metaphorical clumsiness. The damage is caused by want of diplomacy or tact or through ...
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E-bandoned For more than a decade, the e- prefix has been a popular way to create terms that relate to electronic and Internet-mediated communications. I wrote about this back in early 1999 when the fashion seemed to be at ...
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Niddering This obscure word — meaning a coward, or cowardly — is the result of an error, but one which has been rubbed true by time. It’s very rare, but it can carry a special punch when it appears: “Stripped of its outer integuments of salacity ...
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RANDOMLY CHOSEN

Insinuendo This week, Weird Words comes with a health warning: unwise use of this word may seriously damage your linguistic credibility. It is one of the few words in the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary to which an editorial ...
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RECENTLY ADDED PAGES

Muggins; Acersecomic; Deleb; Witching hour; Tabnabs; Colcannon Night; Two Brewer's Dictionaries; Talaria; Pico-projector; Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary; Monkey wrench; Epigenome; Grasp the nettle; Punchline; Garth; Scrumping; Collapse of stout party; Hard lines; Abditory; Herf; Writing and Script; Agrestic; It’s All in a Word; Jorum; Topsy-turvy; Past master; The F Word; Pandiculation; Bitter end; Ostrobogulous; Dozenal; Terrific; Freelance.

THE NEXT WEB SITE UPDATE

The next update is due on 28 November, when you should be able to unearth the origins of slipshod and read a review of the new Macquarie Dictionary, together with whatever else turns up in the next seven days that looks interesting.

MY NEW BOOK

The cover of Michael Quinion's book 'Why is Q Always Followed by U?'

Not only a new book, but the first to be published by Particular Books, a new imprint of Penguin. The title question is just one of 200 that I answer. Each began life on this Web site and its associated e-magazine but every one has been freshly researched to find facts not available when the answer was first written. Such is the pace of etymological discovery, in fact, several had to be rewritten a second time to include new information that came to light during the writing of the book. Most are illustrated by annotated quotations to help readers understand how the words and phrases evolved and to place them in their historical and social context. Find out more or learn what the American lexicographer Erin McKean thinks of the book.

[Michael Quinion, Why is Q Always Followed by U? Word-perfect Answers to the Most-asked Questions about Language, published by Particular Books, an imprint of Penguin Books; hardback, 352pp; publisher’s UK list price £12.99. ISBN-13: 978-1-846-14184-3; ISBN-10: 1-846-14184-2.]

OR TRY MY PREVIOUS BOOKS ...

SIC!

• Unfortunate inversion of sense department: Susan Bradley found a news story in The Times about a young man up in court for having urinated on a war memorial during a pub crawl. His solicitor was quoted: “He has suffered considerable public approbation.”

• “Unreal, man!” was the comment of Mícheál Ó Doibhilín from Dublin. He was referring to the blurb on the packet of Walkers sensations crisps [potato chips] he recently bought. It boasted that they’re “Infused with real ingredients ensuring each and every one of our crisps delivers a real taste sensation.”

• Department of post-mortem struggle: the Sydney Morning Herald, David Killeen tells us, reported on 7 November about the release of three young green sea turtles. It told of the enormous trials and risks facing baby turtles in crossing beaches from their nests to get to the sea. “By the time the baby turtles reach the open ocean, at least one-third are dead”.

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