nukelearfishing

Category: words

  • d’oh (twice)

    As part of moving into a new house we have discovered that some of the extension leads we had were not suitable. Electricity sockets are in different places in the new rooms so the cables needed to be longer. I decided that what would be helpful would be some 5m long cables so that they…

  • looking for a wookiee

    I think our family might acquire a new euphemism: “Looking for a wookiee.” It will mean ‘going to the toilet’! No, we haven’t lost our mind, and if you have ever visited our house you might have a sense of why “Looking for a wookiee” might mean that. Last year, when I was convalescing following…

  • the write stuff

    I have a confession to make. I love fountain pens. I don’t know why but I love the combination of the concept, the feel of them,  and particularly the sense of the flow of ink when writing that make up a fountain pen. I even like the sense of ancient history behind them (there are…

  • thoughtless or less thought?

    A lot of time and effort had gone into creating a resource. It had been honed, refined, shaped and adapted over a period of several months after the initial version had been finished. Finally it was ready to be released and there some positive feedback. But there were also some people who made critical comments…

  • backhanded compliments

    Following my lengthy period of convalescence after my surgery in February I am now back at work full-time. I was blessed by being able to phase my return slowly rather than jump straight back in. And this has led to some very interesting comments from people who saw me early on in the process and…

  • no joking matter

    Having recently posted my degree dissertation on ‘A Theology of Humour’ it feels appropriate to be making an observation on the recent comments by Boris Johnson about women wearing Burqas. I am not going to give Mr Johnson’s comments any publicity by repeating them save to say that I consider them to be reprehensible and…

  • brexit stage right?

    I have tried to resist the change, I have tried to make a stand, I have tried to persuade others, but in the end it seems inevitable that ‘Brexit’ has entered the English language. It’s such an ugly and clumsy word – a lazy amalgamation of ‘Britain’ and ‘exit’ to denote the decision in the…

  • dis

    In an early edition of yesterday’s bloggage I made a typo that completely changed the meaning of a phrase. I had edited what I had written from ‘I do not agree…’ to ‘I profoundly disagree…’ I replaced the ‘do not’ with ‘profoundly’ and thought that I had successfully added ‘dis’ to the front of ‘agree’…

  • addidges

    Some words start to sound funny when you say them out loud a few times. They may start off sounding fine, but when you repeat them they start to take on a different audio character. Try these (repeat them slowly out loud 4 or 5 times): Bliss Grumbling Indulge Adage I hope that you are…

  • new words

    Those of you who are unfortunate enough to be regular visitors to this blog (and the fact you keep coming back suggests that you are doing it deliberately as opposed to those who have stumbled on this repository of bloggerel on t’internet) will know that from time to time I like to invent words. I have created…