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Origin of the word ‘selfie’
It seems almost certain the selfie originated in Australia with a young drunk first using the word to describe a self-portrait photograph more than a decade ago. Oxford Dictionaries revealed this week...
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The rise and fall of slang over 900 years
I read an interesting article recently about the rise and fall of slang words throughout history. There is even an interactive chart where you can see words in different areas that have come and gone...
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One of my favourite smells
My others are just-mowed grass sheets after having dried in the sun freshly-brewed or ground coffee freshly baked bread plastic dolls sun tan lotion Vicks Vaporub Johnson’s baby powder
View ArticleThe difference between ability, capability and capacity
For this one, I am going to use an excellent explanation from grammarist.com ability vs. capability vs. capacity Ability, capability, and capacity are synonyms in many of their uses. All are frequently...
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Did you know?
fear of being without your phone is called nomophobia if you hear your phone ringing even when it isn’t, it is called ringxiety, fauxcellarm, phantom vibration syndrome, phantom ringing syndrome,...
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New words
I am sure that self-isolation and social distancing will enter the dictionary this year, as will many slang terms related to COVID-19. In addition, ‘old’ words like ‘furlough’ have been used more and...
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Coronavirus vocabulary
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has brought many new words and phrases into everyday use. Some existed before but are used more now. Others have entered our vocabulary...
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Venomous vs poisonous
Photo by Adam Baugh These are two of South Africa’s most venomous snakes, a female boomslang to the left (seen because the female boomslang is brown and the male is green) and a black mamba to the...
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This always baffles me
This is the best explanation I have found about the etymology of the pineapple vs ananas conundrum
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Words for today
Information overload, also known as: infobesity, infoxication information anxiety, information explosion is, I think, one of the curses of today. You can see this clearly with the COVID-19 pandemic....
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Words with no equivalent in English
English has the wonderful word ‘defenestration’, which does not seem to occur in any other language. But on the other hand… Finnish has a word for pantsdrunk! If you are interested in more – here is a...
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Interesting about orange
Orange, seems to be the only basic colour word for which no other word exists in English. There was no colour orange, at least before oranges came to Europe. This is not to say that no one recognised...
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The difference between equity and equality
“It’s not about everybody getting the same thing,” Cynthia Silva Parker says “It’s about everybody getting what they need in order to improve the quality of their situation.” In teaching, equality...
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Dysania
…although in my case I think I hate waking up more than I hate getting out of bed.
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The Euphemism Treadmill
This expression was coined by cognitive psychologist and linguist Stephen Pinker in 1997 I thought this was very interesting because over the years I have seen word after word become offensive. Any...
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