When it comes to food, if someone says that “X is yummy” it can usually be taken to mean that they very much like what they’re eating. But what if they say “X is yummy” in an ironic way rather than in a sincere way? The philosophical implications are pondered by Professor Nick Zangwill, Ferens […]
Tag: phrase
“Mind the [wildcard] gap” — in academic paper titles
If you’ve ever used The Tube (the underground railway system) in London, there’s a very good chance you’ll know about this announcement : What’s perhaps less well known is the wealth (perhaps even the plethora) of academic papers which have taken advantage of the phrase in their titles. Here are but a few examples : […]
Red herring mystery solved?
Michael Quinion says he has solved the mystery of the red herring—how the phrase “red herring” came to have its current meaning: The matter is now cleared up as the result of a pair of articles in the October 2008 edition of Comments on Etymology, edited by Professor Gerald Cohen at the Missouri University of Science […]
Cold Comfort: for linguists
Norbert Hirschhorn [pictured here] composed this poem, which will provide cold comfort, especially to the linguistics community: COLD COMFORT (‘Is a cliché merely a trite, overused figure of speech? I argue that every cliché in the book has withstood the test of time, new ones invented even as we speak. A cliché expresses in fewest words […]