English Language FAQ

Surely it's the 'longest word you ever heard' - all together now:  "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" was immortalized by the Sherman brothers in the Oscar winning musical, Mary Poppins.  It is a variation of  "supercaliflawjalisticeexpialadoshus" a  c ompound word first  published  in a column published by the  Syracuse University Daily Orange in March 1931.  The writer, Helen Herman, suggested that the word "implies all that is grand, great, glorious, splendid, superb, wonderful. According to some linguist Richard Lederer, it 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."   The Sherman brothers first heard the word at summer camps during 1940s. Incidentally, their  working relationship  was far

March aux puces - original flea market still popular in Paris A mysterious term given that the market for fleas is limited. There are two (vaguely) plausible theories: 1. March aux puces? A translation of march aux puces. This was the popular name for a large outdoor market in Paris that became popular in the 1920s.  The name  march aux puces was "because there are so many second hand articles sold of all kinds that they are believed to gather fleas." [E.S. Dougherty, "In Europe," 1922]   2. Dutch Swamp? From the Dutch word for swamp is given as “vlie”, which sounds like flea when spoken in English. The Dutch settlers held markets in the then swampland that was Manhattan Island.  The OED goes with the French market explanation as the more probable. French words in English

The American political system has three centres of power. These are  the President and the two chambers in the American Congress the -  Senate  and the  House of Representatives .  'The House' is the bigger body because congressmen are elected at a local level while the Senate consists of two senators from each State. At present the Presidency & the Senate are controlled by the Democrats. The Republicans have a small majority in the House. Legislation has to pass from the House to the Senate and finally to the President.  Because the two main parties (the Republicans & the Democrats) have major philosophical differences most legislation is contested.

The words parody and satire are often used interchangeably but they are not synonymous .

A mong the 9,218 quotations from {Dickens’} works in the OED, 265 words and compounds are cited as having been first used by him in print and another 1,586 as having been used in a new sense. Source

The Romans adapted Greek to form their own (Latin) alphabet.