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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
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Can you get a Handel on what this week’s word might be?
Word of the week: It's an obscure, archaic 19th-century word with a definition almost as strangely obvious and clear as what it describes isn't – poor, illegible handwriting, and bad spelling and grammar
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Jarvis Cocker playfully addresses the issue of the volgivagant in a classic number from 1995
Word of the week: It’s an obsolete 17th-century term pertaining to the common masses and so-called more vulgar or baser tastes within the uneducated and poor, but something that remains as relevant today in the pursuits of cultural or political popularism
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A woundikins moment in Family Guy …
Word of the week: It’s an archaic, comically silly swearword, an exclamation of pain or exasperation that was only used for a brief period in the 19th century, but where does this kind of thing relate song lyrics?
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The yaffingale, or green woodpecker
Word of the week: It’s an archaic, southern English name for the European green woodpecker, picus viridis, that species of beautiful colour that taps on softer wood trunks to feed and nest, but how does such a bird come up in song?
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Time to weigh up this week’s word
Word of the week: In politics or business it’s always important to scrutinise the smallprint. This now antiquated, but handy and evocative word pertains to medieval market official in charge of the official weights, against which merchant weights were compared to make sure they were not cheating their customers
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Guitar crossed with cello? Arpeggione models created by luthier Philippe Berne
Word of the week: It is neither guitar nor cello, but fretted and tuned like the former, and bowed like the latter. Read on to find out more with musical examples, as well as instances where guitarists have decided to take a bow …
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Oh what a carillon … in Bruges, Belgium
Word of the week: The bells! The bells! Struck by metal clappers connected to baton keys, this beautiful sounding word – and a-peeling historic instrument – comprises, by definition, a minimum of 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells played melodically or in chords
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Like a trumpet, but not a trumpet …
Word of the week: It’s similar to a trumpet, but isn’t. What’s the difference, who plays it, and on what songs and pieces. All is revealed here in a blow-by-blow account, featuring artists including Miles Davis, Bruce Springsteen and The Pogues
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Two for one: the jazzophone
Word of the week: It is quite rare, has possibly the cheesiest name of any instrument, and is an unholy hybrid of trumpet and alto saxophone, but can produce a remarkably vibrant and unusual sound
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