Posts Tagged ‘English language’
January 7, 2013
By Hugh Rawson
The fortieth anniversary of the Watergate scandal is well worth observing not only for its political results – an American president, Richard M. Nixon, was forced to resign and a number of his top aides went to jail – but for the way it enriched our political vocabulary. The scandal popularized such words and phrases as cover up, deep six, deep throat, dirty tricks, follow the money, inoperative, smoking gun, and stonewall. And it also offers lessons about the dangers of using deceptive language that remain relevant today.
The words of Watergate tended to be highly euphemistic. The president and his men tried at every step along the way to sugar coat criminal actions through the artful use of language. Thus, the incident that brought the scandal to life, the break-in on June 17, 1972, at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., was initially downplayed by Ron Ziegler, the president’s press secretary, as “a third-rate burglary attempt.” (Actually, this was the second third-rate burglary at the DNC office. The purpose of the June 17 break-in was to fix a telephone bug that had been installed there at the end of May.) Read the rest of this entry ?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Posted in the English language | Tagged American politics, English language, euphemisms, political vocabulary, President Richard Nixon, Watergate scandal | 4 Comments »
November 28, 2012
by Kate Woodford
It’s autumn, the time of the year when colds and flu are everywhere. With so many people coughing and sneezing, we thought it time to take a look at words relating to colds, flu, and their unpleasant symptoms.
When you are starting to suffer from a cold or flu, you might say you are coming/going down with a cold/the flu. You may have an idea where you caught it or picked it up. (Was it from the colleague who sneezed and coughed her way through a meeting with you?). It may be that it was impossible to escape as there are so many coughs and colds going round (= being passed from one person to another). Read the rest of this entry ?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Posted in the English language | Tagged cold, describing illness, English language, flu, vocabulary | 4 Comments »
November 19, 2012
By Hugh Rawson
“Do you want white meat or dark meat?”
“Dark, please.”
“Would you like a drumstick?”
The key words in this snatch of dinner-table conversation – white meat, dark meat, and drumstick – are used so often when carving up a turkey at Thanksgiving that people tend to forget they are euphemisms: agreeable, round-about words employed in place of ones that are regarded as coarse or offensive. In this case, the “offensive” words are breast, thigh, and leg, words that people in polite society once avoided using, especially when women were present.
The avoidance of plain terms for bodily parts commonly is associated with the prudery of our Victorian ancestors though many of the evasions predate Her ascension to the throne in 1837. To cite just a few examples from this euphemistically fertile period: people started saying darn instead of damn, to employ dashes (d - - -) when writing the harsher word, to perspire instead of sweat, to wear unmentionables instead of trousers and breeches, to have stomachaches instead of bellyaches, to use nude rather than naked when referring to human figures in painting and sculpture, and to be laid to rest, not buried, in a cemetery (from the Greek word for “dormitory” or “sleeping place”) rather than in a graveyard. Read the rest of this entry ?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Posted in the English language | Tagged English language, etymology, euphemisms, food words, politeness, Thanksgiving day | 12 Comments »
October 29, 2012
by Liz Walter
Brits call them holidays, Americans call them vacations, and nowadays, if you can afford it, you can have almost any kind you want. The singer Sarah Brightman has just announced that she is to become Britain’s first space tourist when she travels on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station some time next year. She won’t be able simply to turn up with her suitcase though – first she has to undergo several months of preparation at the cosmonaut‘s training centre, including time in a centrifuge to learn how to stay conscious when subjected to the immense G forces she will encounter.
For less intrepid souls (or those of us who can’t spare the undisclosed though presumably massive ticket price for such an adventure) there are still plenty of other options. These range from mancations geared towards male-only groups, greycations which cater for three or more generations of one family holidaying together, to so-called halal holidays which may include facilities such as alcohol-free dining areas, single sex spas, and guidance in the hotel room on the direction of Mecca. Read the rest of this entry ?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Posted in the English language | Tagged English language, holidays, neologisms, new words, travelling | 3 Comments »
July 23, 2012
by Kate Woodford
On Friday 27th July, 2012, an estimated 4 billion people worldwide will watch the opening ceremony to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The opening ceremony is the official start to the Olympic Games. It is also an opportunity for the host nation to show off or ‘showcase’ its many talents and qualities. Some parts of the ceremony are present in all Olympic opening ceremonies. (They are obligatory according to the International Olympic Committee charter.) Other aspects of the ceremony are unique to the host nation, and are intended to represent what is special about that country. Read the rest of this entry ?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Posted in the English language | Tagged English language, London 2012, The Olympic Games, The Paralympic Games | 6 Comments »
July 11, 2012
by Kate Woodford
On Saturday, July 7th, 2012, the Olympic flame arrived in Cambridge. Held by a runner in the specially designed Olympic torch, it approached the city centre along streets lined with over 8,000 cheering spectators. The flame then spent two days in Cambridge – days 50 and 51 of a 70-day tour of the UK. This tour, called the Olympic Torch Relay, is an important part of the build-up to the Olympic Games. (The opening ceremony is on Friday, 27th July.) So what is the Olympic Torch Relay and why is it done?
Read the rest of this entry ?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Posted in the English language | Tagged English language, Olympic flame, Olympic Torch Relay, the Olympics | 2 Comments »
June 18, 2012
By Hugh Rawson
Incensed over what it views as a Western-Arab plot, Iran on Thursday threatened to sue Google for deleting the name Persian Gulf from its online mapping service and leaving the body of water nameless
– The New York Times, May 18, 2012
The poor Google mapmakers. They were caught in the middle of a political controversy and wound up with a “nameless” compromise that couldn’t have satisfied anybody.
The Iranians have always insisted that this body of water between Iran and Saudi Arabia be called the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, the Saudis and other Arab states prefer to think of it as the Arabian Gulf or, simply, The Gulf. This is an old dispute that flares up from time to time. In 2010, it led to the cancellation of the Islamic Solidarity Games – the Olympics of the Muslim world, in effect. Because Iran, the host nation, insisted on using Persian Gulf in promotional materials about the games and on medals for events, the Arab states declined to participate. Of course, Iran itself is a relatively new name (since 1935) for the country that used to be known as Persia. To the outside observer, it is a wonder that the former Persians haven’t insisted on calling this strategically important body of water the Iranian Gulf. Read the rest of this entry ?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Posted in the English language | Tagged English language, geography, place names, politics | 11 Comments »
May 28, 2012
by Liz Walter
What would Gandhi have made of glitterbombing? This form of protest – a curious mixture of the high-spirited and the serious, the comic and the aggressive – consists of throwing handfuls of glitter at whoever has caused the protester’s anger. Glitterbombing has been aimed mostly at those accused of homophobia, and most of the recent US Republican presidential candidates have now been glitterbombed at one time or another. The tactic has also been used by Occupy Wall Street protesters.
Another, rather more benign, form of bombing is yarn bombing, a protest not against bankers or politicians, but against drabness and dreariness. Also known as knit graffiti, it involves leaving knitted objects such as toy animals in public places, or wrapping anything from road signs to cars to telephone kiosks in brightly coloured knitted covers. Started in Texas, the craze was brought to London by a woman called Lauren O’Farrell, who re-christened it yarnstorming, not liking the connotations of the term ‘bombing’. O’Farrell took up knitting as a means of distraction while undergoing cancer treatment, and celebrated her all-clear by tying an enormous scarf around the lions of Trafalgar Square. Read the rest of this entry ?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Posted in the English language | Tagged English language, neologisms, new words, politics, protests | 2 Comments »
March 12, 2012
By Hugh Rawson
The words look like they might be Latin, perhaps something you would find scrawled on a wall in Pompeii, but they are not. Potus is an acronym, composed of the initial letters of the phrase, President of the United States. Flotus is his wife, the First Lady of the United States. (It should be pronounced FLOE-tus to rhyme with POE-tus.)
Once used mainly by the Secret Service and other White House insiders, the acronyms have slipped into the public domain. For example, historian David Brinkley, in a review of Jodi Kantor’s The First Marriage, a new book about Barack and Michelle Obama, noted that the author “became intensely interested in the working relationship between Potus and Flotus” after interviewing them in 2009 (The New York Times, Feb. 17, 2012). Read the rest of this entry ?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Posted in the English language | Tagged acronyms, Barack Obama, English language, First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, Morse code, Nancy Reagan, President of the United States | 1 Comment »
February 20, 2012
by Kate Woodford
Large parts of England have recently had their first real snow this winter. With several centimetres of snow still lying on the ground, we thought it time to take a look at words relating to snowy or wintry weather.
Like rain, snow can be light or heavy. When it comes from the sky, it falls or comes down. Each of the tiny pieces that falls is a snowflake. When the snow stays on the ground and does not melt, we say it settles. On the ground, it forms a covering. If the covering is thick, we may call it a blanket of snow. If it is a very thin layer of snow, we sometimes call it a dusting: a light dusting of snow. The word snowfall is used especially to talk about how much snow falls: Heavy snowfalls are expected tonight and tomorrow. Read the rest of this entry ?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Posted in the English language | Tagged cold, English language, ice, snow, vocabulary, weather | 8 Comments »
Ron Carter
Cambridge Words
Dom Glennon
hughrawson
katewoodford
Liz Walter
Paul Heacock
racheledf
Trevor Bryden
