Have you ever wondered where old sayings like ‘turn a blind eye to’ or ‘burning the midnight oil’ come from? Some of the following sayings have a really sinister origin, and others are completely surprising. 35 Popular Old Sayings and Their Real Meanings “At the Drop of a Hat” Means:…
It is surprising when you think about how much of the English language is peppered with German words. We talk, without realising half the time, that we are borrowing words from one of our closest European neighbours. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise that many of these ‘loanwords’ are…
There are two people I credit for my love of old English words. They are my dad and an English teacher in high school. Whenever my dad would read me and my siblings a bedtime story, he’d occasionally come across a word we didn’t recognise. Instead of simply telling us…
I remember reading Macbeth at school and being instantly beguiled. Here was a world rich with layered meaning, coloured by vivid metaphors and expertly finessed into a captivating moral story. But I didn’t realise at that young age there were words Shakespeare invented that we still use today. I’m not…
George Bernard Shaw wrote: “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” It’s easy to see why. For example, if an American offered biscuits in gravy to a British citizen, they would likely be met with confusion. Likewise, it’s probably not a good idea for Americans to…
I love the English language. The way you can use words to express a thought or paint a picture is something that makes us human. However, some words do us no favors. I’m talking about English slang words. Don’t get me wrong, I use a few of the following examples…
When it comes to commonly mispronounced words, I have a really bad habit. If I don’t know how to pronounce a word, I’ll just skim over it and carry on reading. Then one night, I watched 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy'. There was a scene where he was trying…
Sometimes I want to describe a situation where a person is a complete jerk, but I don’t want to use that particular word. It’s not that I‘m being pretentious, it’s more that the word doesn’t quite fit the circumstances. It was only when I started looking for alternatives that I…
