Your Custom Text Here
Laurence Sterne’s acclaimed novel - a prime example of circumbendibus
Word of the week: Not a snaking elongated piece of public transport but still a very evocative 17th-century word for a circuitous, long-winded route or way of doing something or telling a story …
Read more
Meme of the time: four lads in jeans, Birmingham 2019
Word of the week: Aside from the literal outer layer of the ray-finned slippery fish, this evocative, slightly suggestive 19th-century slang means very tight trousers, while this week’s bonus word, excruciators, points to the experience of wearing very tight shoes
Read more
Ooftish
Word of the week: This evocative term is derived from the Yiddish expression gelt afn tish, meaning cash money on the table, ooftish was common slang for money or cash in late-19th to mid-20th century English, with oofless in turn meaning skint, poor or bankrupt
Read more
Illustration from Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel by Gustave Doré
Word of the week: Huge, gigantic, enormous, voracious or insatiable, this colourful adjective derives from the character in the pioneering 16th-century French prose writer François Rabelais’s multiple volume work, Gargantua and Pantagruel
Read more
Alan Rickman as whe wheedling, warzling Obadiah Slope in a BBC TV production of The Barchester Chronicles
Word of the week: An evocative Old English-origin dialect word for sycophantic flattery, pertaining to sly persuasion for favours, it derives from two old English words – wær meaning cautious, and sealm meaning speech
Read more
That certain smile: Alan Rickman as Obadiah Slope, the calculating curate in BBC’s The Barchester Chronicies
Word of the week: It’s an adjective to describe the act of flattery, often false and deceitful, toadying, fawning and that done by a sycophant, but where does it come from and how might it show up in song?
Read more
Three recent books that are more than relevant to the current word
Word of the week: About whom could this apply right now? It's a word for extreme, foolish pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with arrogance that tends to lead to a fall, and a dangerous thing in the head of someone with power who refuses to acknowledge it.
Read more
The figure portrayed on this famous record cover could be described as a practitioner of nosism
Word of the Week: It sounds like a strange religion or nasal habit, but from Latin ‘nos’, this is the practice of using the ‘we’ pronoun when really only referring oneself in action or opinion - it’s more common in song than ‘we’ might imagine
Read more
From The Quincunx, the 1989 novel by Charles Palliser
Word of the week: This ancient symbolic word is not really one to sing, but points down many cultural roads through history, as well as unearthing a variety of lesser known music
Read more
Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
Word of the week: What comes around … this week's rather shapely word circles culture in many directions – from medieval French poetry to a 17th-century musical form all the way to modern slang on sport stars to derogatory cars
Read more
Johnson and Trump. Both deal heavily in ackamarakus, not always with success
Word of the week: It’s a rare, slang noun that could easily describe the speeches of several prominent politicians – meaningless activity just for show, deceptive nonsense and bluff. But how might it show up in song lyrics?
Read more
The Dead Kennedys bring up a number that fits this week’s word
Word of the week: Clear your ears, but especially your throat. What word is coming up this time? An archaic term that that was in use from the late 16th to 19th centuries means to cough, from the Latin tussicus, or tussis, having that affliction
Read more
May and Thatcher: two more recent harridans, though their gender has nothing to do with policy or nature
Word of the week: It traditionally means a scolding, bossy, unpleasant woman, possibly with origins from the 17th century and related to the verb to harry, or hassle, and has a certain comical quality, but where does it come up in song lyrics?
Read more
Monstrous nonsense: from the original illustration of the Jabberwock from Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass
Word of the week: It’s best known as the mythical monster in Lewis Carroll’s poem from Through The Looking Glass (1871), but the word also means nonsense or gibberish, something that continues to be very much at large
Read more
Polar bears, and others from the bear family can sense food from as far as 20 miles
Word of the week: It refers to the system that governs our sense of smell (olfaction) and is a highly evocative word, and while there are many songs about odours, who uses it in lyrics?
Read more
You must remember this … a kiss is just …
Word of the week: It’s an adjective with a beautiful sound. It means the characteristics of our ape cousins, but of course sharing almost all the same DNA, it also means us. But where is simian in lyrics?
Read more
Yellowback books from 19th century
Word of the week: Following on from zephyr last week, we work backwards to a colour term that can pertain to cheap books, a fish, a mussel, insect, a certificate for gold, and in urban slang, council workers wearing hi-vis jackets
Read more