English Language FAQ

We hosts of 2012 (my home city so I am claiming full ownership!) were thrilled to see the Union Jack rise in salute to Jessica, Greg and Mo on British track and field's greatest night of triumph. Or rather to see the Union Flag as pedants insist it should really be called This is because Union Jack is technically a maritime flag used to distinguish British ships. Though purists object it is popularly used to describe the the flag of the United Kingdom. The flag is composed of symbols of the constituent parts of the UK - the red cross at the centre is the cross of St George representing England, the blue for Scotland etc. UK? So why Team GB? Interestingly the Olympics brings to the surface the confusion created by the terms Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Great Britain should only really refer to the core island of Britain, not the outlying islands or Northern Ireland. It would, therefore, be more logical to have a team UK. Uncertainty is also evident in the use

This is a profanity-zone so you'll have to work out - or ask Mr Google - the word that follows 'What' and 'the'. The interesting thing question is the speed at which this euphemistic acronym has spread to become standard online shorthand. I had assumed that the usage was fairly recent and Know Your Meme cites the YouTube 'wtf boom' “wtfboom” is a meme where a normal event gets interrupted by a loud voice screaming “ WHAT   THE  -” cut off by an extremely loud explosion, and a sinister laugh. It is commonly used as an element of surprise/interruption. But a correspondent of Jay Nordlinger suggests earlier origins and a wider definition: I see myself in 1975 at the beginning of my freshman year at university. I sit in a huge lecture hall with hundreds of others and am trying to keep up with whatever subject the professor way down in the front is blathering about. When my spiral notebook scribbling gets hopelessly behind, and I’ve completely lost the c

What does Babra mean? An apparently simple question demonstrating Churchill's dictum about two countries divided by a shared language. An American colleague of mine used to greet me every morning with question 'what's up?' to which I would reply 'Nothing' or 'I'm fine.' After the third time it occurred that for her the question was an all purpose greeting whereas to British ears it meant 'what is the problem?' or 'is something wrong?' So when Bug's Bunny - or Babara Streisand at the other end of the beauty continuum -  ask 'What's up, Doc?' we British assume a sarcasm that may not be intended.

A run on a bank is when a large number of customers withdraw their funds simultaneously. If a run on a bank gains momentum it can quickly 'fail' or go out of business, as  happened with Lehman Brothers in 2008. This is what George (James Stewart) is trying to prevent in the famous scene (above) from 'It's a Wonderful Life'. With institutions that are 'too big too fail' (see The Royal Bank of Scotland) a government or international financial organisation may rescue the bank by either taking it over or injecting huge amounts of cash. This can prove ruinously expensive (see the current situation with the Spanish banks). How do you stop a bank run? With great difficulty. The traditional remedies are: a) delay -  ....the bank is going to open again next week ... the key requirement is to 'buy time' to organise refinancing. This means slowing down the rate at which customers can withdraw their funds. At the end of the scene above George agrees to r

When economists talk about fiscal policy they are referring to raising and spending taxes. Monetary policy is what central banks do to control the amount of money in an economy. Normally they do this either raising/lowering interest rates. Raising interest rates restricts the amount of money circulating and should reduce inflation. Lowering interest rates encourages expenditure as there is more money available. But as everyone know these are not 'normal' economic times. Interest rates in the advanced western economies have fallen to close to zero - but the recovery remains this. To counter this some central banks have introduced something called quantative easing .  Put simply means pushing more money directly into the economy via the banks - see here for more details.

Not from the accommodation arrangements on ships to India as is commonly claimed. The story goes that the more well-to-do passengers on ships travelling between England and India used to have POSH written against their bookings, standing for 'Port Out, Starboard Home' (indicating the more desirable cabins, on the shady side of the ship). Unfortunately, this story did not make its appearance until the 1930s, by which time the term had already been in use for some twenty years. Added to this, the word does not appear to have been recorded in the form 'P.O.S.H.', which would be expected if it had started life as an abbreviation. ( Source ) A more likely source is the 1890s slang word for a dandy, but there is no agreement about origin.

A partial shortlist below: Humphrey Bogart   Casablanca (1942) "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" Renee Zellweger   Jerry Maguire (1996) "You had me at hello" Clarke Gable   Gone with the Wind (1939) "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" Arnold Schwarzenegger   Terminator II (1992) "Hasta la vista, baby" Gloria Swanson   Sunset Boulevard (1950) "I'm ready for my close-up" But what makes these lines so memorable? Researchers at Cornell University think they have 'created a computer program to break down the formula behind some of cinema's most enduring lines'.  Hasn't this 'formula' alway been the elusive holy grail for Hollywood? Disney hired top screenwriters for their epic John Carter - only to end up with one of the most expensive flops of all time. In contrast Casablanca was famously chaotic in its development, with actors going into celebrated