Category Archives: language

pedantry vs hyperbole

Posted on Monday, 2002 June 10 by Anton

A newspaper headline caught my eye: Search ends in tragedy. What, did the search somehow cause the death of the missing child, or of one of the searchers? No, it’s simply that the child was found dead. Classically, a tragedy … Continue reading →

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I’m a poet and don’t knoet

Posted on Saturday, 2002 June 01 by Anton

Charlie Stross describes the FBI Carnivore email-snooper as “an indiscriminate Hoover”. That’s twice this month he’s made a pun such that I can’t tell whether he was aware of it. (The other was “Genetic Algorithm That Ate Calcutta”.)

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successful turns of phrase

Posted on Tuesday, 2002 May 28 by Anton

The phrase “Iron Curtain” was coined by Churchill in a speech in Missouri, if memory serves. Is there a known source for “Cold War”? Update: Dan Kohn did the legwork and got the goods: Cold War This term for a … Continue reading →

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perfidious Former Albion

Posted on Sunday, 2002 May 05 by Anton

I see that a “former Bolivian president” (BBC) / “ex-Bolivian dictator” (CNN) / “former Bolivian leader” (Nando) has died. What kind of dictator did he become when he retired from being Bolivian? Why do you never see “Bolivian ex-dictator” (or … Continue reading →

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“that’s not what I meant!”

Posted on Saturday, 2002 May 04 by Anton

Review of a German book which “tries to show that many of the obscurities of the Koran disappear if we read certain words as being Syriac and not Arabic.”

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the name of the word for it is called Haddocks’ Eyes

Posted on Friday, 2002 May 03 by Anton

Thousands of Inca Mummies Raised From Their Graves About 40 of the large mummy bundles are topped with false heads, known to archaeologists as falsas cabezas. Can’t quarrel with that! (Cabeza is Spanish for ‘head’.)

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orthoepy

Posted on Friday, 2002 April 26 by Anton

Anybody in France: Is Le Pen pronounced like pin, pan or penne? Update: François Velde writes, “The last; it rimes with haine . . .” [‘hate’]