English as she is wrote

[Weyland]

Somebody gave me this wonderful CD for Xmas, but I've only just installed it. It's a lovely, lovely thing. Chambers is my favourite handy-sized paper dictionary in any case, with its matching Thesaurus, but having the pair of them on the computer is delicious. Highly recommended.



Note the anagrams. Automatic if you switch the facility on.

Here are a few typical Chambers entries . . .

mullet³
n a hairstyle that is short at the front, long at the back, and ridiculous all round.
[Perh from dialect mullethead a fool]

bikini
n a brief swimming costume for women, in two separate parts; (usu pl) a pair of scantily cut briefs, esp for women.
[From Bikini, an atoll of the Marshall Islands, scene of atom-bomb experiments in the late 1940s; the bikini's effects on men were reputed to be similar]

pock²
n a Scots form of poke2.
pockmantie or pockmanky n corrupt forms of portmanteau.
pock-pudding n a bag-pudding; a Scottish contemptuous name for a mere Englishman.

[Chambers has Scottish origins.]

[Weyland]

Here's a good one from Chambers:

bafflegab n () the professional logorrhoea of many politicians, officials and salespeople, characterized by prolix abstract circumlocution and/or a profusion of abstruse technical terminology, used as a means of persuasion, pacification or obfuscation.

[Patrick]

Jan 28, 2011 13:27:59 GMT Weyland said:

Here's a good one from Chambers:

bafflegab n () the professional logorrhoea of many politicians, officials and salespeople, characterized by prolix abstract circumlocution and/or a profusion of abstruse technical terminology, used as a means of persuasion, pacification or obfuscation.

Wonderful!

Will you receive updates now - when any new word comes along?

[Weyland]

Jan 28, 2011 15:06:49 GMT Patrick said:

Will you receive updates now - when any new word comes along?

No. Doesn't matter -- I'm perfectly capable of making up my own.

[Weyland]

Oxford English n

A form of standard English in which certain tendencies are, sometimes affectedly, exaggerated. Widely believed to be spoken at Oxford.

[Weyland]

tracksuit n

A loose warm suit intended to be worn by athletes when warming up or training, but sometimes worn by others in an error of judgement.

[Weyland]

boy band n

a pop group, targeting mainly the teenage market, composed of young males chosen because they look good and can dance and sometimes even sing.