The power of fiction, the beauty of words, and the God who made us to wield them for His glory.

Word Nerd Wednesday – Out of the Blue

Welcome, word nerds! Word Nerd Wednesday is back after a two-week hiatus due to sheer busyness! This week’s phrase comes to you from my eldest daughter, who loves these posts (and proof reads them before I post them!) She heard me use the phrase ‘out of the blue’ earlier this week and immediately said, “That’s a great idea for a Word Nerd Wednesday post!” Well, I couldn’t say no to that! I had a pretty fair idea of what blue referred to before I looked this one up, and I was right; blue refers to the sky. But why do we

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21 March 2018

Word Nerd Wednesday – Quotidian

Welcome, word nerds! I think it’s time for a round of What do you think it means this week, don’t you? I wish I could remember where I read this word recently, but it was one of those ones that I had to look up (don’t you love it when you get one of those?) Quotidian So, what do you think it means? (a) someone who collects quotes; (b) occurring every day; (c) prolific; (d) possessing a large amount of general knowledge. Think you know the answer? I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I’ll have the answer for

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21 February 2018

Word Nerd Wednesday – Quidnunc

Greetings, fellow word nerds! I couldn’t resist sharing today’s word after thestoryenthusiast shared it with me in last week’s comments. It paints such a great picture, I think we need to have the English equivalent. The word is: quidnunc. As soon as I looked at the word, my Latin knowledge broke the word into its two obvious parts. quid = what; and nunc = now. Therefore, quidnunc equals ‘what now’. Hmmm…. Didn’t exactly help me work out what the word meant. Was it the Latin equivalent of ‘huh?’ 😆

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7 February 2018

Word Nerd Wednesday – Christmas

Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noël! Frohe Weihnachten! Bon Natale! Buon Natale! Feliz Navidad! However you say it, I send you greetings of the season. 🙂 Today’s word nerd choice was a fairly obvious one: Christmas. Do you know how the word came about? What about the phrase ‘merry Christmas’? Or that dreaded abbreviation Xmas? The word Christmas had its beginnings in the Old English term Cristes mæsse, meaning ‘Christ’s Mass’ (Mass meaning the Eucharist—celebration of the Lord’s Supper or Communion). Pretty straight-forward, huh? Masses specifically commemorating the birth of Christ were celebrated on 25th December as early as the 4th Century AD, but it was almost 1,000 years before

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20 December 2017

Word Nerd Wednesday – Thank You

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends! Today’s Word Nerd post is inspired by you. 🙂 “Thank you.” It’s a phrase we use multiple times every day, from the ingrained automatic response when we’re handed our change at the shop, to the overwhelming attempt at expressing deeply felt gratitude when mere words feel so inadequate. But have you ever stopped to wonder how the expression came about? I hadn’t until this morning! 🙂

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22 November 2017

Word Nerd Wednesday – Irony

Humour is a funny thing, isn’t it? And believe it or not, I didn’t originally intend for that statement to be a pun! 😁 Like most people, I love a good laugh, but the very same scene that makes me break out into gut-busting laughter may simply draw a raised eyebrow from someone else. Something that has me snickering into my hand may leave someone else scratching their head.

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15 November 2017

Word Nerd Wednesday – Moribund

Hiya, Word Nerds! So glad you popped by today. Many of you may be aware that 31 October 2017 marks 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. Each evening this month, our family has listened to a short podcast on a hero (or heroine) of the Protestant Reformation from the series Here We Stand, produced by Desiring God.

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25 October 2017