Having previously written posts about baking, cooking and dancing related idioms to tie in with popular TV shows, it seems only right to turn to pottery as we approach the final of this year’s The Great Pottery Throw Down. So,… You know that idiom that refers to comparing yourself to your neighbours as a benchmark […]
I recently overheard a radio news presenter refer to “less people” at a particular event. The issue of whether to use less or fewer in a sentence is one that catches many people out. This is confirmed by Oxford Dictionaries,… The humble apostrophe may be small and trivial to some, but its correct usage brings […]
As a standalone word, a graph is a diagram showing the relation between variable quantities – usually measured along a pair of axes at right angles. In Linguistics, it refers to a visual symbol representing a unit of sound or other feature of speech. But it also appears in a combined form as a root […]
Like many of you, the recent spate of spring sunshine has enticed me out into the garden to do some much-needed tidying and cutting back in the borders. While snipping away with my secateurs, it occurred to me that copy-editing…
Hot on the tails of my recent post on idioms about mums for Mother’s Day, this week’s blog takes a look at popular phrases and sayings related to Easter. Not surprisingly, most Easter idioms in English are associated with rabbits, chickens, eggs and lambs – but I thought I’d sneak in a couple of chocolate-based expressions for good measure! […]
Now that the clocks have gone forward, I think it’s safe to say that spring has well and truly arrived. Even if the weather here in the UK doesn’t appear to have received the memo! Not surprisingly, a blog post about spring idioms and sayings ‘sprung to mind’ as an obvious addition to my idioms series. […]
Well, it’s certainly all hotting up in the GBBO* tent ahead of this year’s final… Hopefully there won’t be a soggy bottom in sight! The art of baking covers a wide range of culinary delights, from bread, cakes and biscuits to pies, tarts and puds. And like many popular pastimes, it’s produced an abundance of […]
Home › Posts tagged etymology As a standalone word, a graph is a diagram showing the relation between variable quantities – usually measured along a pair of axes at right angles. In Linguistics, it refers to a visual symbol representing a unit of sound or… After visiting an eye-popping Op Art exhibition on the weekend, […]
Posted on 21/07/2015 by Geraldine — 4 Comments ↓ After much deliberation and soul-searching (well, procrastination followed by a much-needed nudge) I finally joined Twitter back in January 2015. Here’s what I’ve discovered during my first 6 months… It’s all in the open The most important thing to remember… Posted on 21/01/2015 by Geraldine — […]
The summer holidays are drawing to a close, which means it’s almost time for the kids to go back to school. It seems fitting, therefore, to take a look at education-related idioms as the next in my series. As is the case with all idioms, school idioms are an integral part of the English language. […]
Have you ever met someone whose surname was a perfect fit for the job they do? Or, indeed, an unfortunate pairing such as a goalkeeper called Dropsy*? I’ve been pondering writing about this subject for a while, inspired by Mr Macro – a Maths teacher at my sons’ school – and Mr Cure, our orthodontist. But what […]
Let me start by saying that I’m rather fond of semicolons. But I’m not so enamoured when they’re used incorrectly or ineffectively… Out of all the punctuation marks in English, the one that seems to catch most people out is the semicolon (sometimes written as semi-colon). Many people – including a lot of writers/editors judging from […]
I’ve been a bit remiss with my blogging lately, but I felt compelled to publish one today as Britain takes to the polls in the historic EU referendum. Don’t worry; this post is going to stay well away from politics. Instead,…
Like the majority of people, I take reading and writing for granted – whether that’s jotting down a shopping list, filling out a form, sending a text, browsing the newspaper or surfing online. Yet 1 in 5 adults don’t enjoy…