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Just passing by
Thought I had better put in an appearance before poor old BTW expired out of loneliness. Things have been busy. Random dictionary delve – sombrero is Spanish for any hat, but the word has been – borrowed? misused? – to mean the wide brimmed one. Similarly, avon is assumed to mean river, in ancient languages…
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Gnothe sauton
It’s been a while since we had a dictionary delve, occasioned today by my idly wondering if “global pandemic” is tautology? The dictionary in question was therefore temporarily relieved of its 21st century function as the prop for the iPad when Zooming, and duly interrogated. We know that tautology itself* comes from tauto, the same,…
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Straight Up
Another happy trawl through the dictionary, occasioned by the news of a new orthopaedic wing for Kirkcaldy’s hospital. Orthos is straight, genuine or right angles, leading to orthodox, orthotics and new to me, orthoepy, the study of correct pronunciation. It is also much used in chemistry and by association, geology. On the same page, ortanique,…
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Abu Dhabi
As the estate agents never tire of telling us, one of the many grand things about Fife is its coastline. We have several beautiful beaches within easy reach of our home, a fact which has made the last 9 months just that bit more bearable. In anticipation of yesterday’s Level 4 announcement we tootled off…