April 2015
Word of the Day: Cacoethes
Definition: An urge to do something inadvisable. Audrey was walking down the highway when she espied a grasshopper-infested cornfield. It was the meaning of life. She was a chicken, you see, and her mother had [...]
March 2015
Word of the Day: Ablutophobia
Definition: Fear of bathing My cat has ablutophobia.
Word of the Day: Accismus
Definition: Insincere refusal of a thing that is desired Even though Walter's mum was chief cake maker at a prize-winning bakery, Little Billy didn't much like Walter. This is because Walter: (a) was 6 and [...]
Word of the Day: Pandiculate
Definition: To stretch—like you do after waking. Tiffany had woken at 3am and couldn't go back to sleep. After work, she'd gone with her brother to see a rugby game—it was his birthday. The thing [...]
Word of the Day: Groak
Definition: To silently watch someone eating in the hope they will offer you food. Oh, how I wish the Little Squeak would groak. Instead, he generates decibels and yells 'Cheeeese'.
Contractions you’d never expand, old English, and other relics
English is full of relics, throwbacks to old words or expressions, that often only remain in a single contemporary term or expression. Like 'teller' in 'bank teller'. Tell is an old word meaning 'to count', and we don't see it anywhere else...
Word of the Day: Absquatulate
Definition: To leave somewhere abruptly. Oh dear. I must absquatulate. I was really enjoying this meeting about how to be an aggressively forward-facing corporate citizen in the current market space. You guys, keep up the [...]
Numbers are big
Humans don’t really get numbers. Some isolated communities function without having numbers bigger than 4, which incidentally is about the highest number of ‘things’ we can reliably count with a glance. 1 thing. No worries. [...]