English Language FAQ

schmutter [ˈʃmʌtə]  noun

"I am well aware that I am the 'umblest person going," said Uriah Heep, modestly .     Charles Dickens, David Copperfield The modern humblebrag has several niche forms.

The word Tsunami  first appeared in a National Geographic Magazine article in 1896.  On the evening of June 15, 1896, the northeast coast of Hondo, the main island of Japan, was struck by a tsunami, a great earthquake wave…

Photo by  Sincerely Media  on  Unsplash It may seem odd that Christians call their day of greatest sorrow Good Friday.

Shampoo is the Hindi/Urdu word chāmpo for a head massage with oil. 

The terminology surrounding this area is confusing, partly for historical reasons.

Listen to this short description of two key words in linguistics: descriptivist and prescriptivist .

Atticus Finch:the stalwart hero of To Kill a Mockingbird  A stalwart person is reliable, dependable, resolute (or inflexible depending on your perspective.) The word is probably a  14th Century Scottish variant on a old English term: stælwierðe "good, serviceable," In the US the term acquired a political dimension with a section of the Republican Party  that refused to abandon its Civil War hostility to the south. They became known as the 'Stalwart Party', a label that stuck. A version of this post is included in the  English FAQ Teaching Pack   Download for only £1.99 with offer code CQDWKF0

'Nudge theory' comes from Richard Thaler/Carl Sustein book  Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness .  It is based on the idea that we are inherently lazy and tend to take the default option in most circumstances. The 'nudge' is to gently push us in the right direction for our benefit or the general good. One example would be making automatic kidney donation the default - you would need to carry an 'opt-out' card. The central question, however, is who is doing the nudging? The government? If so, do you trust them to look after your best interests? Interesting discussion of the issues in this BBC Radio show Analysis .

English is a Germanic language, but its  lexicon ( vocabulary) has borrowed heavily from other languages. Most of these loanwords have arrived for specific historical reasons: most notably the invasions of the British Isles that occurred before the 13th Century   The Romans, for example, introduced words to describe the physical character of the country they were occupying:  street, wall , etc. Norman French legal terminology:  judge, jury, justice, court, bailiff, defendant, verdict , etc. Isn't English really a Latinate/Romance language then? No. Loanwords do not affect the structure of the English language. An English speaker may use the word  ballet,  but he will not say a  dancer of ballet ‚ as you would in French, Spanish, etc. A few imported terms retain their original syntax. The United Nations has a  secretary general,  while the chief officer of the English legal system is the  attorney general . But these are rare exceptions.

The word mesmerize is named after   Franz   or   Friedrich   Anton Mesmer   1734-1815 .

Hedge funds are companies which pool capital from wealthy clients with a view to maximising return. They invest in all asset classes - bonds, equities etc - and  because of the scale of their investments can profit from small price movements. The largest hedge funds are also 'market makers' - their investment decisions influence others. The verb "to hedge" means to "insure oneself against loss but some successful hedge fund managers have been very aggressive in their investment strategies. The  credit-default swaps  market (famously described by Warren Buffett as 'weapons of mass financial destruction') is an example of this. In general English 'hedging your bets' is to approach an uncertain situation by taking action to cover a variety of outcomes. When a bookmaker receives a large bet on a particular result, he will generally 'lay off' the bet with another bookmaker. This mean by betting a smaller amount on the opposite outcome. ...

The definition of metanarrative is earnestly debated in faculty lounges and hipster coffee-bars. Here is one attempt: a narrative  about  narratives of historical meaning, experience or knowledge, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a (as yet unrealised) master idea.    J. Childers/G. Hentzi eds.,  The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism  (1995) p. 186 What does this mean in comprehensible English?  I can make no sense of 'narratives of historic meaning' but the meta here seems to be defined as 'wider' or 'overarching'.  So for a Marxist the story of the Russian Revolution forms part of the wider metanarrative of the (supposed) history of class struggle. Terms like  metanarrative  have emerged from the influence of post-modernism on leading universities in the West.  Matt Labash  is one of many to question whether this influence has been entirely be...

Thanks to Ms Langley's Year 11 English class for this Wordle The prefix meta - as in metalanguage, metanarrative etc - is very difficult to pin down. In broad terms meta means 'about itself' - so metalanguage is the language of language. For example a language teacher might use metalanguage like  lexicon or  past perfect in a lesson plan. This is reasonably comprehensible, though some might argue that a less fancy-pants alternative would be technical-terms or even jargon. It could also be argued that unlike other words with the meta prefix (see metatnarrative)  metalanguage has at least the advantage of precision e.g. teachers should avoid using complex metalanguage in the classroom. And it can be useful for teaching identifying the concepts that underpin language learning. What is a meme? What is a metanarrative? Mrs Langley's English Class Wiki

In recent years the previously obscure field of typefaces has become increasingly fashionable. Seth Stevenson at Salon suggests that 'font fanatic' Steve Jobs was a crucial influence in the rise of the 'amateur typography expert'.  To join this groovy world of graphic design you first need to identify the difference between serifs (those with 'little feet') and sans serif (those without). sans-serif typefaces (with no little feet at the tops and bottoms of their letters) first appeared in the mid-1800s, they were labeled "grotesque" because they looked quite bizarre to unaccustomed eyes. Serif V Sans Serif Traditionally, sans serifs are used for headline rather than body text in print. The rationale is that the serifs help the eye to distinguish words. But increasingly this approach is challenged by some typographers - with the rules being deliberately subverted by the 'grunge typography' of David Carson, for example. 'Th...

Only the squarest will not know that EDM (electronic dance music) is what hipsters are tuning in to. And crucially dance music, as it was originally called in the UK in the 90s, has finally taken off in the USA. The big breakthrough came when concerts/event/raves/parties moved out of night clubs - only open to those over twenty-one in most American states - to stadiums where the top EDM DJs command vast sums for individual appearances. So lucrative have these club/stadium nights become that some of the biggest names - like members of the Swedish House Mafia -  now appear in the Forbes Rich list. Oldsters & the defiantly uncool will puzzled as to why playing records - or mixing sounds if we are to get technical - can earn upwards of $100,000 for a 90 minute show. But across the world these new sultans of swing will be helicoptering between stadia, hoovering up fortunes as they do. Personally I'm going to give bossing the decks a miss this year. I've made my millions ...

A pangram is a sentence containing all 26 letters of the alphabet. The best know example is The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

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...

A specific learning difficulty in mathematics and/or dealing with numbers. In most cases this can be tackled by taking a different approach to the traditional ones used in this area. What is the underlying cause of this problem Steve Chin , a specialist in this area, has pinpointed 'poor short term and working memories , both of which are key pre-requisite skills for mental arithmetic and indeed mathematics in general'. Because traditional maths teaching relies heavily on memorising facts and processes this can create a significant barrier to learning from the outset In Chin's view this problem is exacerbated by a focus on memorising facts (e.g learning tables) rather than understanding Mathematical processes: Better performing peers use linking strategies which are based on understanding numbers, operations and how they relate. Lower performing pupils seem far less able to employ these significantly useful strategies. He also believes that the focus on speed in solvi...

When having fun on a computer! Woot is one of the most surprising new entries to the OED. It is used to express elation, enthusiasm, or triumph (especially in electronic communication. Apparently its popularity derives from online gaming and role play. Oxford Dictionary of English New Oxford American Dictionary