Much has been written about William Shakespeare, especially this month as we celebrate the anniversary of his death, 400 years ago. He was born on 23rd April 1564 and died on his birthday in 1616, at the age of 52.
Although his original plays and poetry are peppered with words like ‘doth’, ‘thee’ and ‘wherefore’, [more…]
Has it ever struck you as odd that Easter is represented by a rabbit sitting in a basket of chocolate eggs? For a start, rabbits don’t lay eggs, and furthermore, why are they made of chocolate?
Many of the words associated with Easter are connected to the Northern hemisphere springtime and predate Christianity. The name [more…]
If you’ve ever played the game of trying to talk on a subject for two minutes without saying um or er, you will realise just how much a part of our everyday speech is the interjection.
The um, er variety are called ‘filled pauses’ giving the speaker time to think of the right words. It’s [more…]
Life in the past was based in the countryside far more than it is today and country people came in for a roasting, wordwise.
The word villa meant ‘country house’ or ‘farm’ and gave rise to village, villein ‘feudal peasant’ and villain. Villain now means the bad guy in a story, a criminal or [more…]
