March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb – the month of March usually starts with cold, unpleasant weather, but ends mild and pleasant. (Either part of the proverb can be used alone.) To be as… Read More ›
Idioms
The Streisand Effect
The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to… Read More ›
To gird one’s loins
Although I think if you did that nowadays, you would probably be arrested! Or fired!
It’s SCAPEgoat, not ESCAPE goat!
Although the way things are going, I will not be surprised if everyone is using escape goat in a decade or two, more’s the pity. From Wikipedia A scapegoat is a person or animal which takes on the sins of others, or… Read More ›
Why can English speakers no longer use their language properly?
There was an energetic discussion yesterday in one of the dog groups I frequent about the number of dog breeders using the word weary instead of wary. As in, Boerboels need to be weary of strangers. More and more people chimed… Read More ›
When language does not translate across cultures
This hilarious fail from an Osaka department store in Japan was reported in various media yesterday. When I saw it and before I read the article, I assumed that it had been because someone thought that ‘fucking’ was a synonym… Read More ›
