Word Du Jour » C

Calathumpian

Tom Joad — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:09:23 +0000

I am lucky enough that the regular readers of this effort seem to like it enough to want to come back again – but even luckier that some decide to write a piece themselves. Today is one of those days, so here with a word I’d certainly never heard of is the Lone Wolf himself, [...]

Cockney

Tom Joad — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:05:07 +0000

Awright me ol’ chinas, come an’ read abaht stuff like rhymin’ slang, cockney roots an’ just ge’ a bi’ a cultcha.

Phew! Just like Talk Like a Pirate Day, I can’t keep it up – although it is, in part, where some of my original accent comes from. I am not a cockney – my [...]

Cruciverbalist

Tom Joad — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 09:09:54 +0000

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I’ve been meaning to do this one for a while. Cruciverbalist is a word constructed from two Latin words, crucis (cross) and verbum (word). In case that wasn’t a big [...]

Ciao

Tom Joad — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:24:01 +0000

A really quick one today. Most will know that ciao (pronounced chow) means goodbye in Italian. Many will also know that it also means ‘hello’ in Italian. But why use the same word for both? It comes from Venetian – a dialect of Italian spoken by around five million people around the Adriatic, including Italy, [...]

Callipygian

Tom Joad — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:55:29 +0000

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Maybe you’ve already guessed by the picture? A saucy one, this and yet another thing we have to thank the Greek language for. From the Greek kalli (beauty) and [...]