Ferment and foment confuse the best of us: word usage
Foment means "to incite or rouse." The words have some overlap in use, as they can both be used to express agitation and situations that can cause change or unrest.’
The scary truth about “Would They Love A Lion?”
I am seldom stirred by stories, be they children’s, Essop’s or fireside tales. But yesterday I was more than a little disturbed while reading a book with the title, “Would…
If music be the food of love
Gotta love Shakespeare: origin of idioms
An idiom as colour to language. If music be the food of love was coined by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night. Here we discuss usage
Zeitgeist: origin of words
“The general moral, intellectual, and cultural climate of an era; For example, the Zeitgeist of England in the Victorian period included a belief in industrial progress, and the Zeitgeist of the 1980s in the United States was a belief in the power of money and the many ways in which to spend it.”
Let them eat cake
Let them eat cake: How idioms originate
With Women's Month well under way, gender equality is still a hot topic. At a gender equality webinar last week, one of the speakers who was trying to break through…
Imagine money on the laundry line
A new take on money laundering
Last week while editing an academic text, my hawkish eyes fell upon the phrase money laundry. The esteemed professor had made a typographical error. I smiled quietly to myself as…
How a rabbit shows us that AI is way off
The other day when I tried to help my friend set up her blog, a bunny thing happened. She wants her blog to be about faith-based principles from a Jewish…
pic by Joel Muniz
Keep the ball rolling with these idioms
This week I received a rather disturbing SMS from my bank. In fact, this was the second time the bank was sending this alarming message. The first time, I checked…
Remember to tag
Top 10 tips to get user interaction
As the world obsesses about millennials, there is a constant flurry among marketers to get their attention. We know that they are all mobile savvy, and we know that they…
Words and Phrases: Of Mondegreens and Mishearings
Blame the mishearing, blame the accent, blame the frame of reference – these give rise to mondegreens. “According to the word watcher William Safire of The New York Times, the…