Photo by Hector Bermudez - Unsplash
Money in my salad: slang in language
This week while working on a copy assignment for a bank, I looked up other words that mean money. I was surprised by what Google returned. In addition to a…
Of Smoke and Mirrors and other idioms
A good friend told me this week – her ship had come in. This means a change in luck, a sudden shower of good fortune or a great success. When…
poker is the perfect example of not showing your hand (photo by Raymond Tan)
Chinese Wall is moral dilemma: How idioms originate
As I contemplate my next travel destination, my enthusiasm starts with a trip to Russia, then Egypt and Morocco and finally India, again. Then it occurs to me, having just…
Japanese armpit model in Tokyo
Seasonal snag for armpit advertising
I was intrigued and a little disgusted to read that Japan is using women’s armpits as an advertising medium. In disbelief, I asked Google and got more than 8 million…
Photo by Laila Klinsmann on Pexels.com
Know how to use rain, rein and reign
It’s spring in South Africa and in the season’s first flush, we had a smattering of rain. That’s the stuff of celebration. What’s not to celebrate is the state of…
No-cry zones with sunions: How words are formed
You’ve heard of a no-fly zone. Now, there’s a no-cry zone. That’s when it comes to onions. Or rather sunions. English is not the only discipline to combine two elements…
An attack of destinesia
New word from a six year old: Palindromes and portmanteus: how words are formed
Almost every word in English has a definition and almost every word composition has a description for why it came to be called that. Until that is, the word that…
Zeitgeist: how words originate
Zeitgeist is a lovely word to get your teeth into, literally and figuratively. And both syllables require a firm grit. Derived from the German language, the word is surrounded by…
Have these men done their fartlek?
Fartlek, among the funniest words in the English language
Yesterday as I was cursing the spinning instructor for insisting I use muscles I didn’t know I had to save energy, I thought she had lost the plot. Saving energy…
Of acronyms and shortened words: abbreviations explained
This week a client asked me, “Is it okay to write CEO?” I was a bit taken aback because CEO is one of those ‘words’ that is better known by…
