Category Archives: Words, phrases & expressions

To gin or not to gin (“up a horse’s fundament,” or not …)

A rearing Spanish mustang. Feaguing a horse can make it appear more lively. / Wikimedia Commons

We all know what gin the noun is. They say it goes well with tonic — like peanut butter & jelly, roast beef & yorkshire pudding, bubble & squeak. But what about gin as a verb? Can you think of when you might use gin to describe something you do (or you’ve done), rather than something you drink — or you’ve drunk? And I bet you don’t realize that at least one sense of the word might (or might not) be connected to gingering, figging, or feaguing, which in turn are related to a horse’s fundament. Continue reading →

Marmite and its unconvincing etymology

 

Beyond the Joke, when reviewing last year’s comedy offerings, wrote that “[Ricky] Gervais might be a Marmite comedian but the success of Humanity shows that a hell of a lot of people love Marmite. Politically challenging, controversial but also laugh out loud funny.” Brits will confirm that many plays and musical theater productions (in the UK, not anywhere else) get tagged these days as “Marmite shows”. What does that mean? And is there a connection with the Marmite name’s origin? [Update, March 8: Thanks to a hat-tip from John Leake on Glosso’s Facebook page, we’ve also got the origin of Bovril — Marmite’s cousin: scroll to the bottom to see its etymology.] Continue reading →

Bad boy fillers

Here’s the second in Glosso’s mini-series about “extra-curricular” speech phrases, habits and social cues that add nuance and extra clues to what we’re actually saying. Let’s look at fillers. What’s your – er – filler? Is it “uh”, “um”, “like”, or “OK”? We all use them — don’t kid yourself if you think you don’t. But do these bad boys really deserve the poor reputation they carry around with them? You might be surprised to discover some of the good stuff they offer. Continue reading →

Weasel words

Wikimedia Commons

During the year that I lived in Nigeria in the early ’80s, I was known affectionately as Weasel. People tell me it wasn’t because I was partial to using weasel words; evidence supports the commonly-held belief that my first name had something to do with it. Welcome to weasel words, which – as any good linguist will tell you – pepper the language of advertisers, marketeers and politicians, among others. This is the first of a few Glosso posts that will be taking a look at a whole category of words and phrases — including, for example, kadigans, fillers, and phatic expressions (sic) — that serve a social, cognitive or emotional purpose other than the actual message being communicated in words. They can be subliminal or subconscious; they can be subversive, misleading, or even helpful – to either the speaker or the listener. And you use them all the time without even realizing it …  Continue reading →

Highbrow: a person to regard with admiration or disdain?

phrenology

Highbrow and lowbrow come from phrenology, the 19th-century peudo-science of regarding the shape of the skull as a key to intelligence. Is highbrow — that man of high thoughts and high culture — the sort of person we all aspire to be? Or is the highbrow with his pretensions of superiority an object of disdain? Continue reading →

2018’s Word of the Year

Wikipedia Commons

Collins Dictionary has selected its Word of the Year 2018. As the inhabitants of Planet Earth become ever more concerned about the environment and its alarming demise, so the words we use to describe all aspects of it — from victims to culprits, scourges to solutions  — rise in frequency and everyday usage. Collins has chosen as 2018’s top dog a common adjective that labels items — mostly made of plastic — which are made to be used once, which are poorly recyclable, and which have a significant negative impact on the environment. Can you guess what the word is? Continue reading →

You say smelled, I say smelt; you say dreamed, I say dreamt …

Clothes were hung up to dry …

Men were hanged at the gallows …

There are several common verbs that have more than one past tense or past participle — like spill, and hang. Where he spilt the ink, I spilled it; the villagers hung their clothes out to dry, but they hanged their thieves. Many of these usage differences are geographical, determined largely by which side of the Atlantic you’re on. (Brits tend to prefer the poetic “t” to the more formulaic “-ed”.) But not all. There are a few other factors — some of them slightly obscure, and even possibly unconscious — that can affect which past-tense version you decide to opt for. Continue reading →