Why 'as mad as a hatter'?

There is an unexpectedly dark edge to the probable origin of this idiom. 'Mad as a hatter' is usually used  - in a jokey, affectionate way - to describe extreme eccentricity. But the allusion appears to be to the effect of mercury poisoning caused by the in the manufacture of felt hats. Mercury poisoning  affects the nervous system, with dementia a common symptom. Daily direct contact with the metal made hat-makers particularly vulnerable to the affliction.

The phrase appears in "The Clockmaker" (1817) by Thomas Haliburton but surprisingly not directly by Lewis Caroll in either 'Alice in Wonderland' (1865) or 'Through the Looking Glass (1871). There is, however,  "A Mad Tea-Party" in Alice, where Hatta the Hatter and the March Hare are initially referred to as "both mad" by the Cheshire Cat. It is their zany antics that are being referenced in modern usage.

What is a smoking gun? Where does the phrase come from?

smok·ing gun  

Noun A piece of incontrovertible incriminating evidence

Used to mean indisputable evidence 'smoking gun' was first used in the Sherlock Holmes story, The Gloria Scott (1893). 

We rushed into the captain's cabin . . . there he lay with his brains smeared over the chart of the Atlantic . . . while the chaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand.

William Safire the identifies the first contemporary use as during the Watergate scandal in 1974. The phrase was then heavily used in the controversy regarding nuclear weapons in Iraq.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Kindle Edition $0.89)
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

What is a pundit? Where does the word come from?

The word pundit comes from the Hindi/Sanskrit word 'pandit'. It originally meant someone knowledgeable in (Hindu) religion. Now it generally refers to anyone using specialist expertise to provide commentary or analysis in the media. Examples include football pundits, political pundit etc.

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Where does the word diaspora come from?

di·as·po·ra  

/dīˈaspərə/

Noun Jews living outside Israel. The dispersion of the Jews beyond Israel. The main diaspora began in the 8th–6th centuries bc, and even before the sack of Jerusalem... Though living in different countries across the world the diaspora expressed a shared culture and a belief that one day all Jews would be reunited (in the Biblical Promised Land).

In modern times the term is sometimes used more generically to describe all communities of immigrants  with a shared sense of 'home'.  A recent article in The Economist, The Magic of Diasporas, suggests that these diaspora are playing an increasingly important role in the world economy

There are now 215m first-generation migrants around the world: that’s 3% of the world’s population. If they were a nation, it would be a little larger than Brazil. There are more Chinese people living outside China than there are French people in France. Some 22m Indians are scattered all over the globe.  

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What is Globish?

Global English ('Globish')  is the term used to describe when English is used as a lingua franca or common language between non-native speakers.  A French designer might communicate with his Japanese client in global English, for example.

So that's English with an accent, then? And lots of mistakes?

Not necessarily. Many speakers of other languages use a more grammatically correct form of English than the average native speaker.

But native English speakers know more words?

They generally have a wider range of vocabulary. Steven Pinker has estimated that the average high school student has learned 60,000 words - far more than a language learner can usually acquire. As a result communication between non-native speakers tends to be characterised by a narrower, more formal vocabulary.

Are there other differences?

The key one is a lack of shared cultural references: to television shows, consumer products, school experience etc.

Global English puts greater emphasis on clarity of expression, especially when conducting business or discussing technical or legal matters. 

So Global English is like a stripped-down version of the language?

In practical terms this is often the case. And a French businessman, Jean-Paul Nerriere, has even tried to formalise this in a  'language' he calls Globish

Globish? Not the prettiest word of the 1500!

Monsieur Nerriere concentrates on function and meaning is unconcerned if a word is 'ugly'. He is aiming for the linguistic equivalent of a budget airline: something that communicates a message in the simplest form. And the concept of Globish has gained academic respectability, with leading linguist Robert McCrum devoting a book to it.

But isn't most English still spoken between native speakers?

Not according to David Graddol. In his survey for the British Council English Next, the majority of conversations in English across the world no longer involve someone speaking their first language.

International tourism is growing {around 763 million international travellers in 2004} but the proportion of encounters involving a native English speaker is declining. Nearly 75% of international travel involved visitors from a non-English-speaking country travelling to a non-English-speaking destination. This demonstrates the ... growing role for global English.

Interview with Robert McCrum on Globish here

Video of Jean-Paul Nerriere explaining Globish here

How Globish Language Became the World's Language

Globish The World Over

What is Esperanto? And why did George Orwell hate it?

Polish linguist and pacifist, L.L. Zamenhof invented Esperanto ('hope) which he believed could be an international lingua franca or second language. Because it had no irregular verbs and phonetic spelling esperanto was a 'perfect' language. It also had no associations with a particular nationality or country.

George Orwell's aunt was an early proponent of Esperanto. When he went to stay with her in Paris, she insisted on speaking this new language when he was hoping to practise his French. 

The political element of Esperanto particularly disturbed Orwell. The attempt to control and direct language was in his view a central feature of totalitarianism.

Newspeak - the language Orwell created for his dystopian novel, 1984, is clearly a variant on Esperanto.

More on Esperanto here

What is the longest word in English?

Surely it's the 'longest word you ever heard' - all together now: 
 
The word was invented by the Sherman brothers for the musical. According to some  learned sources, the word has some very fancy linguistic roots:

super- "above", cali- "beauty", fragilistic- "delicate", expiali- "to atone", and docious- "educable", with the sum of these parts signifying roughly "Atoning for educability through delicate beauty." Although the word contains recognizable English morphemes, it does not follow the rules of English morphology as a whole ....

More fun to know is that the working relationship of the Sherman brothers was not 'practically perfect'. When Disney Studio drafted them in to save the score of Mary Poppins 'creative differences' ended with them throwing typewriters at each other.

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