Home
Origins of Some English Eponyms : Titch, Platonic, Maudlin, Machiavellian
Eponyms are one of the most fascinating examples of how the English language gains new words. In this article we take a colourful look at the phenomenon that is the eponym gathering together the stories of the people behind the words that have passed into our everyday vocabulary : Titch; Platonic; Maudlin and Machiavellian.
How Can Flies Fly at Speed into a Pane of Glass and Seemingly Remain Uninjured ?
How Can Flies Fly at Speed into a Pane of Glass and Seemingly Remain Uninjured ?
The answer lies in a basic physics equation – one we would all have learned at school – and in the fact that the anatomy of a fly is rather springy.
5 Words Introduced to the English Language by Rudyard Kipling
Shakespeare is often credited as a the most prolific contributor of many of the words we use today in the English language. However he’s not the only venerable writer to do so. Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book, was also a highly prolific contributor, coining and popularising many words and phrases still in use in modern English.
Why is Pluto no longer classed as a Planet ?
When the “New Horizons” NASA space probe left earth on January 19th 2006, Pluto was the 9th and final planet from the sun. When it finally arrived 9 1/2 years later in July 2015 it wasn’t! By then Pluto had been down graded to a dwarf planet. So what happened to poor old Pluto to diminish it so?
The Origins of England’s Three Lions
“It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming, Football’s coming home ” – So goes the ever popular 1996 “Three Lions” song. So when did the three lions symbol come to be used as England’s royal arms and therefore on the England team shirts ? The answers is somewhat surprising and reveals why in the past we might’ve been singing “three leopards on a shirt”
Time to Take Out the Space Junk
According to NASA, America’s space agency, the skies high above the Earth are cluttered up with around 23,000 pieces of man-made space junk measuring 10cm or more across, zipping along at great speed and posing a threat to working satellites.
English Words that Used To Have Vastly Different Meanings To What We Understand Today
How would you rate your vocabulary ? Average; Better than Average ; Exceptional ?
It may not matter how good you think your command of English is because in this article we reveal some surprising revelations about some of the words, you may have thought you had a thorough understanding of, had, in point of fact, some VERY different meanings in the past.
Guernsey’s Pagan Icon – La Gran Mere du Chimquiere
At the entrance to the St Martin’s Church yard there is a rather curious pagan symbol that has no real business being there, right next to a Christian Church. It’s a standing stone carved into the shape of a female figure known as La Gran’mere du Chimquiere (Grandmother of the cemetery). What is more there’s a second such stone outside the Castel Church. So where did they come from and why are they outside 2 island churches ?
How Does Bitcoin Work?
Bitcoin, the world’s “first decentralised digital currency”, was launched in 2009 by a mysterious person known only by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, and whose true identity to this day is still unknown. But … What exactly is Bitcoin, and how does it work?
