Christine Lovatt's Desk

Welcome to Christine's Desk

Here you'll find a variety of puzzle themed items and pieces of information to hold your interest. Learn about some of the wonderful words and phrases in our everyday language, find out about the health benefits of crosswords and puzzles, be entertained by Christine's Hello column… and there's much more on offer. The latest submissions appear below. Thanks for dropping by and we hope you enjoy your visit.

Hello – BIG August 2013

There may have been a time when all the lands of the world were joined. Way back in 1596, Flemish geographer Abraham Ortelius suggested that the Americas were “torn away from Europe and Africa ... by earthquakes and floods".

Hello – BIG July 2013

Words, just like us, come from families. Some are related to each other and have ancient ancestors.

It’s not always an obvious relationship. For instance, the words free and friend both came from an Indo-European root meaning ‘to love’.

You wouldn’t think there was a connection between biscuit, precocious and concoct but they all come from [more…]

Hello – BIG June 2013

The English language is like a high-speed moving train, with new words jumping on and old words dropping off constantly.

Most of the words we use in the English language today are of foreign origin. Many basic words came from Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian and English still derives much of its vocabulary from Latin and Greek, [more…]

Hello – BIG May 2013

How much difference does one little letter make in a word? Take the T in egotism for example. You might think that there’s little difference between egoism and egotism, and they do have their similarities. But there is a major difference...

Hello – BIG April 2013

When we hear something we don’t understand, we say “It’s all Greek to me”. This might be closer to the truth than we realise, because about a quarter of the words we use originally came from ancient Greek, either directly or through Latin and French.

‘Brotherly love’ in Greek is philia, [more…]

My Cup Of Tea

This means something one finds pleasing though it’s more often heard in the negative – but that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
Tea is, or most certainly was, the national beverage of Britain and it gave rise to lots of idiomatic phrases such as ‘storm in a teacup’ and ‘not for all the tea in [more…]

The Lion’s Share

To take the lion’s share is to take the larger part or even the majority of what is to be apportioned out.

There are many tales from ancient times that tell of a group of animals going hunting and the lion using his strength and position as king to claim all the spoils.

The story is [more…]

Crocodile Tears

Crocodile tears are insincere displays of emotion such as feigning sympathy at your opponents’ team losing a match.

In ancient times it was reported and believed that crocodiles put on sad looks and sighed sorrowfully to lure their prey. Moments later they would devour the naïve innocent party and weep (with delight?) while munching on [more…]

Hello – BIG March 2013

The word Saracen comes from the Arab word sharq ‘east, sunrise'. It originally referred to desert people who were not Arabs, but by the time of the Crusades, which ran from 1096 until 1272, it had come to mean Muslim Arabs – in other words, the enemy. A Saracen was a Muslim soldier who defended his territories from the Crusaders...