Etymology
How binding are Rachel Reeves’s ‘pledges’?
‘Pop goes the weasel!’ my husband exclaimed, expertly muddying the waters. We had just been listening to another news bulletin…
What’s so fresh about ‘fresh hell’?
‘What fresh hell can this be?’ Dorothy Parker would ask if the doorbell rang. Now fresh hell has been freshly…
What makes a ‘survivor’?
Are you a survivor? We are not, luckily, all Gloria Gaynors. She declared in 1979: ‘I’ve got all my life…
What does ‘potash’ have to do with potassium?
‘“I am not screwed,” replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. “Whisky and potass does not agree with everybody; but I am not…
Is Angela Rayner ‘humble’?
Just before the earth opened up, Sir Keir Starmer said of his deputy: ‘Angela came from a very humble background,…
What does ‘hallmark’ have to do with cards?
‘Do you know how many people Hallmark cards employs?’ asked my husband. I didn’t, and nor would he, had he…
What should you call a ‘boy cow’ and a ‘lady dog’?
‘That’s a boy cow,’ said a woman in the train to a little girl, adding in an aside to an…
What does the ‘100’ emoji actually mean?
When this century began we were complaining (or I was) of the ubiquity of absolutely to signal agreement. The interjection…
Does Canopus have a connection with canopy?
I spent some time looking for the connection between the ancient city of Canopus and the English canopy. Nelson won…
The mysteries of ‘spoof’
‘Spook or spoof?’ asked my husband, throwing a copy of the paper over to me, and only missing by a…
Is it ‘off his own back’ or ‘off his own bat’?
During the last Olympics, Jane Edwards from Worcestershire wrote to the Times observing that Mrs Malaprop herself would have found…
What’s the score on ‘score’?
The courtship rituals of the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility last ten weeks. The consummation is a fiscal…
Where did ‘husband’ come from?
‘Am I housebound?’ asked my husband as I was discussing with him the complicated history of the name for his…
Are Reeves and Starmer really in ‘lockstep’?
‘She and I work together, we think together,’ said Sir Keir Starmer of Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.…
The politics of pips
‘What larks!’ exclaimed my husband archly, assuming that a connection between personal independence payments and Pip in Great Expectations would…
The cunning meanings of quant
The FT headline said: ‘Man Group orders quants back to office five days a week.’ I didn’t know what quants…
The politics of ‘rocket boosters’
Sir Keir Starmer said the other day that he wanted to put rocket boosters under AI. It’s not the only…
