Good morning, word nerds! Thanks for joining me for another Word Nerd Wednesday.As I was reading this week, I was reminded of a phrase I haven’t heard in quite some time: a fine kettle of fish. It’s most often heard in this kind of context: “Well, this is a fine kettle of fish you’ve landed us in.”
Greetings, word nerds! This week’s Word Nerd Wednesday post is inspired by a poem by Shel Silverstein. I don’t know whether you know of his various children’s books, but Runny Babbit is a popular one in our household, all the funnier because it uses so many spoonerisms. And to share a bit of the fun, I’m going to share Runny and the Worty Finks with you.
Hello, word nerds! It’s been a little while since I did a word nerd post, but last week I wrote a review that mentioned a character who fit a certain description ‘to a T’. First of all I had to check how to ‘spell’ it. Was it ‘to a T’ or ‘to a tee/tea’? You can probably guess the outcome of that investigation! 😉 Then the inevitable question dawned. What is a ‘T’, and why is it the ultimate measure of accuracy?
Happy Wednesday, word nerds! This week’s Word Nerd post has been inspired by a comment I got yesterday on one of my previous posts: Flat Out Like a Lizard Drinking. In that post I made use of the phrase ‘ten to the dozen’ meaning to go at a rapid pace, but a commenter yesterday pointed out that to convey the idea of speed, surely it would be more appropriate to say ‘twenty to the dozen’—or at least, a number that is greater than twelve rather than less than twelve.
Happy Wednesday, word nerds! Today’s Word Nerd post is inspired by yesterday’s Top Ten Tuesday post in a round-about kind of way. Yesterday’s topic was Books I’d Slay a Lion to Get Early. As I was thinking about the post, I began thinking about phrases other than ‘slay a lion’ that could be used to convey the same sort of meaning, and one of the first ones that came to me was I’d give my eye-teeth. It wasn’t long before I was asking myself, ‘What’s so special about my eye-teeth, anyway?’
Greetings, word nerds! I had one of those moments this week where I said something that I’ve said hundreds of times before, and suddenly thought, “Why do we say that, anyway?” The phrase? with flying colours. You most often hear it used in the context of passed with flying colours or came through with flying colours. But there is a related expression that has a similar origin: to show one’s true colours. So, what’s the deal with these colours?
Happy Valentine’s Day, reader friends! I thought today might be a good opportunity to look at a phrase that I’m not overly fond of: falling in love. Why am I not fond of it? Well, I’ll get to that in a minute. First I thought it might be interesting to have a little look at why we say falling in love.
Welcome word nerds! Last week I introduced you to the marvellous word scurryfunge, and gave you four possible definitions for the word. (If you missed that post, click here now, before you see the answer!!) In fact, I’ll save the answer until the end of this post, in case you want to hop on over and have a crack at guessing the correct definition. Today, I’m exploring the phrase, ‘on tenterhooks’. I used it recently when I described myself as having been ‘on tenterhooks’, waiting for the release of Over Maya Dead Body, the final book in Sandra Orchard’s Serena Jones series.