So we know you’re going to enjoy exploring Word Talk, where we look at many of the Words and Phrases in our fascinating English language, what they mean and where they came from. Filling The Gaps provides the story behind some of the people, places and events used in Lovatts crosswords.
OK or okay is perhaps one of the most used words in the world.
Its origins are thought to be held in a president’s nickname and a Scottish expression.
In 1840 Martin Van Buren ran as the Democratic candidate for US President. His nickname was Old Kinderhook, after the town where he was born. OK gained [more…]
Originally, the nickname Big Ben referred to the bell in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament in London. Now however, it has come to encompass the clock and its tower.
The bell was cast in 1858 at the Whitechapel Foundry and was originally 16 ½ tonnes in weight. The following year, a 4ft [more…]
If you have ever tackled a cryptic crossword you will have come across the name Spooner or the term spoonerism for a clue where initial letters are swapped e.g. ‘fight the liar’ for ‘light the fire’.
William Archibald Spooner was born in London on 22 July 1844 and is remembered chiefly for his nervous tendency [more…]
East is East and West is West but the Orient sounds so much more exotic!
The word Orient came into English many centuries ago from the Latin for ‘to rise’. It was used to indicate the direction from which the sun rose and came to mean the places located in that direction.
The meaning narrowed and [more…]
These short side-whiskers were originally named after the American Federal General Ambrose Everett Burnside (1824-81) who sported the peculiar whiskers.
He served in the regular artillery and in 1849 was wounded in a fight with Apaches in the New Mexico Territory. He resigned in 1853 to manufacture his breech-loading carbine but was forced into bankruptcy [more…]
Arguably the most widely played game in the world today, Association Football or soccer can trace its origins back to 200BC in China.
The word soccer was a slang term coined in the 1890s. The word soccer originally came from an abbreviation of Association Football (Assoc; soc) a term introduced in about 1870 for football [more…]
“Time is money” has become a common catch-cry in this fast-paced world of ours and yet the dictum has ancient origins.
Way back in 430 BC, Antiphon said that “the most costly outlay is the outlay of time” (MAXIM), a theory which was repeated by Theophrastus, circa 320 BC.
Montaigne mentioned the proverb in his Essays, [more…]
The Chinese New Year festival, known as Yuan Tan, is probably the most important event on the Chinese calendar. Some 370 million people in China travel home to celebrate the three-day public holiday with their relatives, and every four years are given twenty days official leave to visit their home towns or villages. The [more…]
