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NEW FROM THE E-MAGAZINE THIS WEEK Chillwave Unless one is immersed in the pop-music scene, genres can come and go before you’ve noticed them. This one appeared in the summer of 2009 and within three months was being described as past its peak, though references to ... Infra dig It refers to something that’s beneath one’s dignity. We hear and read this originally British term much less than we once did; it’s used now more often outside Britain than within it. That’s largely because in the UK it has become ... See-saw You’re right that see-saw is a reduplicated compound. And I like the author’s reinterpretation of the saying. But the evidence says it’s the see part of the expression that’s the nonsensically reduplicated bit and that saw refers to ... Word of finger It’s a punning revision of word of mouth for the digital age and refers to e-mail, texts and other forms of communication that require typing, even though much of it is undertaken on mobile devices using just the thumbs. By ... UPDATED PIECE THIS WEEK Steam radio It was coined in the UK no later than the early 1950s at a time when television was the coming medium. The pioneers of television considered radio, or sound broadcasting as it was called in the BBC at the time, was old-fashioned ... RANDOMLY CHOSEN Cenatory This is one of 22,889 words and senses marked in the Oxford English Dictionary as being both obsolete and rare. The OED’s only record for it is from a work of 1646 by the physician Sir Thomas Browne. He’s immortalised in ... RECENTLY ADDED PAGES Going to the dogs; Neurocinematics; Galanthophile; Cock-a-hoop; Notta Lotta Nottle; Quinquagenary; Barrelhouse Words; Tumbarumba; Rub of the green; Chicanery; What Paddy shot at; Adust; Crisitunity; Southpaw; Centre about; Hoosegow; Sundae; Drunkard's cloak; Jollop; Pearls of wisdom; Twenty-three Skidoo; Manticore; Rannygazoo; Climate velocity; Colour Me Environmental; Redding; Shoestring; Griffonage; Amn't; Emuscation; Smartbook Unfriend. THE NEXT WEB SITE UPDATE The next update is due on 20 March, when the unusual word mononymous makes an appearance, the Wild West origins of honky-tonk are investigated, and I add anything interesting that comes up during the week. SIC! • A leaflet arrived in the post on 1 March about events at my local garden centre. For March it says Grow your own potatoes. For April Grow your own month. A nice bunch of Junes would suit me. • The Associated Press reported on 6 March about claims in a new book that Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il spent millions on “everything from luxury cars, carpets and exotic foods, to monitors that can detect heartbeats of people hiding behind walls and gold-plated handguns.” Peter Weinrich wondered if North Koreans were really that small. • Ross Mackenzie tells us that a National Statistics Publication for Scotland dated 24 February had the title Children Looked After Statistics 2008–09. Was the Scots government perhaps reintroducing child labour? The publication, it transpired, was reporting statistics for children in care, those being “looked after”. • On 6 March, the Guardian included this correction: “On the page of news briefs, a small photo purported to show ‘Lady Gaga, wearing a jewel-encrusted lobster on her head’. A reader notes: ‘She is wearing a crayfish.’ Of course.” TECHNICAL INFORMATION This site is designed to work with the current generation of browsers. Some older ones might not be able to display every aspect of the design as it is intended to look, nor some of the special characters. If you want to download an updated browser, we recommend Firefox 3.6. The main text on every page is best viewed using Microsoft’s Georgia font. If you do not have it on your system, you can download it for Windows or the Apple Mac. Pronunciations are given in IPA symbols; to view these requires you to have a font on your system that includes them, such as Lucida Sans Unicode, Charis SIL, Doulos SIL or Arial Unicode MS. If you can read this (/mɛtɛmpˈtəʊsɪs/) as IPA you have a suitable font already installed. The site preference is for Lucida Sans Unicode (click on the font name to download the version for Microsoft Windows). See your system help files for how to install fonts.
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Last updated 13 Mar. 2010
Weekly E-Magazine
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