Monthly Archives: October 2008

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Hiss And Pant?

Extract from Crossed Wires BIG 188

With all the coughing and sneezing going on in the office, I looked into the origins of these words, and found that cough comes from German keuchen ‘to pant’ and wheeze from Old Norse hvaesa ‘to hiss’.

Hiccup, once called hicket or hyckock, is named after the sound of the [more…]

Hello – October 2008

You can’t cure a cold or ’flu’ but everyone has their own method for relieving the symptoms. In fact, ask fifty people and you’ll get fifty different answers.
When our family came down with colds recently, we were given all sorts of advice regarding home remedies, but we find the old family favourite always works [more…]