In Roman times an as was the name given to a small copper coin, possibly of Etruscan origin. The same word was also used to denote a ‘unit’ of weight, measure or coin. When as was borrowed into Old French in the twelfth century, it most commonly referred to ‘the …
Quintus Horatius Flaccus aka Horace was probably the world`s first autobiographer. He tells us far more about himself, his character, his peculiar foibles, and his way of life than any other great poet in antiquity. A firm believer in the ” Life is brief and death is coming, so enjoy …
Born around 50–45 BC, the Latin poet Sextus Aurelius Propertius in one of his Elegies pronounced that ‘Passion is always warmer towards absent lovers’ (Semper in absentes felicior aestus amantes). The phrase first appeared in English 1500 years later as the title of a poem by an anonymous writer. This …
Paparazzi and gossip columnists aren’t new. News sheets, pamphlets and satiric poems have been in existence for centuries, often stridently attacking the Establishment. In late 17th-century France no high-profile figure was safe from the chatty but vicious observations of French gossip Gedeon Tallemant des Reaux. His targets included the King, the …
Although the expression in its current form came first from the pen of Frederick Marryat, the idea had been around for a long time before that – but not quite as we know it. James Boswell came close when in 1769 he wrote that the ‘delicate and polite’ Mr Berenger …
The greatest Irish writer of his generation who wrote the critically acclaimed Borstal Boy and The Quare Fellow described himself as “a drinker with a writing problem”. Raised on whiskey by his maternal grandmother because “it was good for the worms”, Brendan Behan achieved national notoriety with a series of …
Those crazy Etruscans, who inhabited Italy in the area that is now modern Tuscany, are regarded as the best dentists of the ancient world. They extracted decayed teeth, replacing them with full or partial dentures, in which individual teeth were realistically carved from ivory or bone and bridgework was crafted …
Penthouse is a fine example of a word that has come about by the workings of folk etymology. Old French had the word apentis to denote ‘an outhouse projecting from the side of a main building’.The word was a borrowing of medieval Latin appendicium, ‘appendage’, a derivative of the Latin …
Roman patricians and plebeians ate with their fingers, as did all European peoples until the dawning of a conscious fastidiousness at the beginning of the Renaissance. Still, there was a right and a wrong, a refined and an uncouth, way to go about it. From Roman times onward, a commoner …
Only within the last century were chocolate eggs exchanged as Easter gifts. But the springtime exchanging of real eggs—white, coloured, and gold-leafed—is an ancient custom, predating Easter by many centuries. From earliest times, and in most cultures, the egg signified birth and resurrection. The Egyptians buried eggs in their tombs. …
