Whether you’re miffed, waffling, ticket-boo or taking the Mickey, the English language is full of words with odd derivations. Just don’t pop your clogs before reading this…
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Category: Fun
Four Candles
Paraprosdokian
According to Groucho Marx, “Time flies like the wind, but fruit flies like bananas.” Marx was a master of paraprosdokian;[…]
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Cross-eyed bears and friendly ants
My late mother thought Gladly was rather a nice name for a bear, but as a child she could never[…]
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Cover creation gone weird
This seems appropriate after yesterday’s Isaac Asimov quote since Asimov cut his teeth writing for pulp magazines with covers like[…]
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The 8 longest words in English
The longest word in the English language is a whisker under 190,000 letters long and would take over an hour[…]
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Real words: anatidaephobia
“Anatidaephobia: the fear that somewhere in the world, a duck or a goose is watching you. Not attacking or touching,[…]
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5 Rules to Remember
1. Money can’t by happiness, but it can make misery a lot more comfortable. 2, Forgive your enemies, but remember[…]
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Using two words instead of one
Benjamin Dreyer has compiled a list of redundancies, surplus words to delete from your writing where you’ve used two words[…]
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12 Odd Idioms
Some years ago, a German friend – who speaks very good English – was visiting New Zealand and boarded a[…]
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