What is hype? Where does the word come from?
The first dictionary definition of hype (1967) was ' excessive or misleading publicity or advertising'.
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Irish English: What is cat melodeon?
Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano accordion player! Cat/ Cat melodeon ( a): dreadful, no good, awful, very bad.
What does it mean to 'move the needle'?
In US politics, 'to move the needle' is to significantly change the opinion polls in the direction of your candidate.
Where does the word baseball come from?
The word comes from England, t he country that famously doesn't play modern baseball.
Which British expressions did The Beatles introduce America?
By the mid-1960s, Lennon and McCartney were turning away from the conventions of the Great American Songbook. British cultural and linguistic references began to permeate their song lyrics.
What is Bloomsday?
On June 16, 1904, James Joyce met his future wife, Nora. He later memorialised the date as Bloomsday - the day of Leopold Bloom 's twenty-four-hour mock-odyssey around Dublin in Ulysses (1922). Ulysses is renowned for the daunting challenge it poses readers ( see here for a brief beginner's guide). It also weighs in at close to a thousand pages in the paperback edition. What happens on Bloomsday? Joyce - whose self-importance matched his monumental talent - believed Ulysses would provide scholars with 'a lifetime' of material. Doubtless, he would think it fitting that thousands now attend public readings of his work, most famously in Dublin, where Bloomsday is a major tourist event. What happens in Ulysses?
Where does the word robot come from?
The word Robot means to work slavishly'. It is a rare example of a Czech word ('robota') being incorporated into English.
Where does the word Easter come from?
The word Easter is not in the New Testament. Nor does it feature in most translations of the Bible into vernacular languages.
Why do we say 'Good' Friday?
Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash It may seem odd that Christians call their day of greatest sorrow Good Friday.
What is a smoking gun? Where does the phrase come from?
A smoking gun is a weapon that has recently been fired.
Why are Academy Awards called Oscars?
Irish art director, Cedric Gibbons , created the initial design for the Art Deco-influenced trophy i n 1928.
Why Orwell did not like Esperanto?
Polish linguist and pacifist L.L. Zamenhof invented Esperanto ('hope '), which he believed could be an international lingua franca or second language.
