Ring-a-ring o’ roses, A pocket full of posies A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down. The rhyme first appeared in an 1881 book, Mother Goose, though in oral tradition it is much older. And for all its apparent innocence and playfulness as a child’s game, the verse is about something deathly …
The earliest known recipe for something similar to today’s potato crisps is in William Kitchiner’s cookbook The Cook’s Oracle, first published in 1817, which was a bestseller in England and the United States. The 1822 edition’s version of recipe 104 is called “Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings” and reads …
“Hospital” literally means “a friendly place to rest.” The Latin noun hospes translates as both “guest” and “host.” The Romans believed that every hospes should be hospitalis, or “friendly.” When they needed a term to designate an inn or hotel—a place where many people could stay and pay as guests …
A codpiece (from the Middle English cod, meaning scrotum) was an important article of men’s clothing for about two hundred years from 1400 to 1600 and were was still worn in Shakespeare’s time (1564 -1616). The codpiece did not just appear overnight:; it evolved. In the late Middle Ages, when …
Sometimes you come across a word that is so lovely, you have to tell the world. In this case it is inenubilable . The Latin for the word cloud was nubes and, as a result, some eighteenth century classicist invented the lovely word enubilate, which meant to blow the mists …
The other day, I was promising not to leave a friend in the lurch when I noticed that I had no idea what a lurch was or how, exactly, you could be in one. I do like to keep my promises nebulous. I had always thought that leaving in the …
Listening to the commentary of the Sri Lanka v England Test match this morning, (for those not in the know, it is a cricket match played over 5 days). I was informed that the contest in Sri Lanka was gruelling. I confess that from my favourite chair I couldn’t quite …
Some of you of an older vintage will remember a band of the 1980’s who rejoiced in the name The Flying Pickets. They had a couple of hits, but was unusual about them was that they sung “a capella”. This musical term, meaning “without accompaniment,” has a rather interesting history. It …
I have been reading a fascinating new book, Hitler’s British Traitors, by Tim Tate. It takes a look at the British Nazi sympathisers from the aristocracy downwards, or indeed upwards. One such was a self-described author called James Lonsdale-Bryans, who on two occasions tried to meet Hitler directly. MI5 considered …
The Apple Of One’s Eye is somebody (usually a child) who is regarded as precious and irreplaceable. The earliest appearance of the term is found in King Alfred’s writing in the ninth century. Originally this term simply referred to the “aperture at the centre of the human eye” viz. the …
