As long ago as 1175 there were a number of official books -bound in black leather which were actually called Black Books – containing straightforward matter concerning the Exchequer or the Admiralty. But the term gained its connotation of someone being out of favour in the reign of King Henry …
The first publication to mention this eccentric image was the work of satirist Peter Pindar (the pseudonym of John Wolcot), who wrote A Pair of Lyric Epistles (1795) containing the line: Lo, like a Cheshire cat our court will grin! Seventy years later William Makepeace Thackeray in The Newcomes also …
Starting around 1800, an enthusiastic and very eccentric preacher began touring the US, often on horseback, attracting large crowds with his declamatory style and bizarre appearance. Unkempt, far from clean, he yelled and postured, flattered, fascinated and challenged. Lorenzo Dow died in 1834, and in 1836 his writings were published …
Having a bad hair day- slang for a time when things are going badly undoubtedly had a limited currency before it reached a wider public. In an interview on Weekend Update, the American television journalist Jane Pauley mentioned having invented the term herself during the 1970s. But according to the …
Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web – which is the operating system upon which the internet runs – but what is less well known is that his invention was inspired by a forgotten Victorian bestseller. Enquire Within upon Everything was a ‘how-to’ miscellany that was first published in …
It is very cold today and when I went out to brave the elements to get my morning paper, I heard somebody say ” it is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey” A phrase I knew well but the thought occurred… why brass and why the poor …
A big thank you for all the responses, but sadly I can only take 10 of you on. The lucky recipients have been notified, and we will start the classes on Wednesday.
Did you know that there is an eighteenth-century English word for shoving live eels up a horse’s arse?. Here is the definition given in Captain Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785): FEAGUE. To feague a horse; to put ginger up a horse’s fundament, and formerly, as it is said, a …
Yesterday I was listening to a choir sing some Renaissance madrigals on the ubiquitous Youtube channel. Among them was a song about how Italy was terribly oppressed in the sixteenth century. The country was exhorted to: Grasp, grasp, bold one, the righteous sword To avenge yourself of a thousand other …
For some unfathomable reason, I have just received an email inviting me to buy Christmas presents at a shop called Sweaty Betty, which for the uninitiated is an outlet selling fashionable sports and fitness clothes for women – in some cases so beautifully designed that customers are inspired to take …
