Word of the Day

I must apologise for not having published anything for a while. My feet still hurt from Duke of Edinburgh Gold, though I know that is no excuse for not typing. Anyway I am up in Scotland right now looking at Universities, namely St. Andrews (that was yesterday) and Edinburgh (tomorrow), of course to study English Literature. I would never let you down, o readers. So while at St. Andrews yesterday we were immersed in a deep fog but was it called fog? Oh no! I will enlighten you all henceforth.

Today's word:

Haar

A cold mist or fog coming off the North Sea along the shore.

Sentence example: There was a terrible haar surrounding the Kennedy Hall where Jess was listening, entranced, to the English lecture.

By Jess

Word of the Day and an Apology

Before I impart the word of the day, T.E.R would like to apologise for not blogging about any books recently and to reassure you that we are still reading, but in snatches between the tedious hours of revision. I am currently delving into The Way of all Flesh by Samuel Butler and will blog about it if and when I finish.
Now on to the important stuff:

Moribund:

1. (Of a person) At the point of death
2. (Of a thing) In terminal decline; lacking vitality of vigor

Sentence example: The flowers that Talia tried to look after were in an entirely moribund state after only two days.

By Talia

Word of the Day

I cannot believe it has taken me this long to post this word, after all we claim to love words but are yet to acknowledge the longest word in the English dictionary (superfluous though it may be.) Standing at a mighty
28 characters long it is...

Antidisestablishmentarianism:

Definition:
Opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church. It was an idea founded in the 19th Century Anglican church.

I told you it was an entirely useless word, but if you manage to slip it into conversation at some point then people tend to look both impressed and slightly confused. Unfortunately I'm not sure how many sentence examples I can produce about antidisestablishmentarianism other than:

"Do you know what the longest word in the English dictionary is?"
Or
"I was just reading about antidisestablishmentarianism the other day, what are your opinions on it?"

If you can think of any more slightly more intelligent sounding ones then please comment below.

By Talia

Word of the Day

Since you are all enjoying Talia's frequent blogging *cough cough*, thought I would just give you another wee word to keep you all happy.

Today's Word:

Ignominy

Public shame or disgrace

Sentence example: Talia felt the ignominy bearing down on her since she had not blogged for a week.

*DISCLAIMER: Talia is still a good, if not frequent, blogging partner*

Word of the Day

Residing in Paris for two weeks, I am reading a dear novel by the name of The Scarlet Letter, about an adulterous woman who is ostracised for her heinous deeds. However, from this novel I have been learning some lovely words, one of which you may hear tonight! Woohoo!

Today's Word:

Whit

A small amount

Sentence example: She drew every whit of energy she had left and ran.

By Jess

An Ode to Our Childhood

This blog has so far focused on "intellectual" books, books that universities love, books that require pages to be read- and then read again, to grasp their meaning and many of them are beautiful novels. But I'm using this post to pay homage to books that don't need our entire focus when we read them, books that can be read again and again, books that you can finish in a day and be satisfied. And whilst there are many books that fulfil these criteria, Harry Potter being the first that comes to mind, instead I am going to talk about the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz. Yes, I know, they're children’s books, and the librarian was quite entertained when I took out both Agnes Grey (Anne Bronte) and Scorpia Rising (the latest Horowitz) in one go. But I have grown up with these books, I was pretty convinced that Alex was the love of my life; a small part of me still thinks he is, and today I finished the last one. To be honest with you, I feel entirely bereaved. With each series that comes to an end I feel like my childhood is ending, I know that may seem dramatic to some of you, but I was one of those kids who, given the choice, would read all day every day.

Scorpia Rising is by no means the most well written novel I have ever read, nor does it have one of the most logical plot lines (I am not convinced that you could turn you iPhone into a latex printer) but that doesn't matter. Because the beauty of children’s books is that the author is not trying to bowl you over with their intellect and metaphorical social commentary, I certainly have not learnt any 'Words of the Day' from reading it, but they are trying to create a world which children (and seventeen year olds) can escape into. Anthony Horowitz has taken every school child’s fantasy of becoming a spy and created a believable and loveable hero for us all to blithely follow across the world from the Alps to Australia to Egypt.

So I raise my imaginary glass to Alex Rider's last foray into the treacherous world of espionage and humbly beg Anthony Horowitz to change his mind and write another nine books for me to devour in a matter of hours. I know this may seem blasphemous to many readers and other English students but give me Alex Rider over War and Peace any day.

By Talia

Word of the Day

This word was discovered whilst reading Lolita (yes the slightly pervy novel with graphic fantasies)and it is...

Paroxysm:

1. A sudden outburst of emotion or action

2. A sudden attack, recurrence, or intensification of a disease.

3. A spasm or fit; a convulsion.

Sentence example: Talia broke into a paroxysm of laughter at the idea of Jessica playing hockey

By Talia

Potter Puppet Pals

Everyone knows that J.K.Rowling put a lot of thought into her characters' names. However, I doubt that everyone knows what they actually mean. You have to admit that the work she put in is incredible.
Because they are all so magnificent I decided to narrow it down to what I think are the best five.


Remus J Lupin
Remus is from Romulus and Remus - the founders of Rome. They were brought up by a wolf. The fact that he is named after a fighting brother shows perhaps him fighting against his other half, i.e. his werewolf side.

Lupin is derived from the Latin for wolf: 'lupus'. 'Lupin' itself means wolflike.

The initials RJ are taken from two Monty Python Flying Circus skits, one being "Professor RJ Gumby" and the other being "Dennis Moore, the Lupin Thief".


Draco Lucius Malfoy
Draco, as a descendant of the Black family, traditionally has been named after a constellation. Draco translates into 'dragon' in Latin and into 'serpent' in Greek. In Roman myth, Draco the dragon is killed by Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom (note the McGonagall reference!) In Christian Theology, Satan is described as a dragon. 'Draconian' means extremely severe or cruel. So essentially he isn't very nice.

Lucius, also his father's name, comes from the name of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the Roman tyrant, otherwise known as crazy Nero. It also means 'bright' or 'intelligent', however the reference to Lucifer (i.e. Satan) suggests that he is intelligent and evil. Which can be a bit scary.

Malfoy, in French, means 'bad faith', as in 'mal foi'. And to think - JK was about to call the Malfoy family 'Spinks'.

So from that we can learn that he is absolutely horrid.

Lord Voldemort
Voldy here is even worse than dear Draco. 'Mors' is the Latin for death, and of course our word 'murder' derives from that too. The Proto-Germanic word 'evol' , where English gets its word 'evil' from - this is another evident link. The Arabic word 'demuhrt' means 'dark wizard', as does the Old Russian word 'vuldimortdek'. So there was a lot of research that went into that one.

Hermione Jean Granger
A slightly nicer character is Hermione, though her eyebrows endlessly irritate me. J.K.Rowling thought that naming her Hermione would mean less teasing for girls with the same name as it is so unusual.
Hermione derives from the Ancient Greek Hermes - showing her as witty, inventive and quick-thinking. Her name was actually taken from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, though Miss G here is completely different to her namesake.

Hermione was also a character in Greek Mythology: the daughter of Helen of Troy. She was fought over by Orestes and Neoptolemus, symbolising the rivalry between Viktor Krum and Ron.

Hermione's original middle name was Jane, however, when Umbridge came into the story, J.K.Rowling changed her middle name to Jean.

Granger is another word for farmer, recalling HG's muggle roots. Granger is also a name for the Grange Movement in the USA, involving agricultural activism. This represents Hermione's activism on behalf of the house-elf community. Again, the name was changed before publication - originally it was Puckle.

Ron Bilius Weasley
Dear Won Won is the last of this short list of Harry Potter names. Ronald is the Scottish form of the Scandinavian name Ragnvaldr, meaning 'advice' and 'ruler'. It is from Reginald, which comes from Raginwald, meaning 'prince's counsellor': he was a trusted advisor of Harry Potter.

Bilius comes from 'bile', one of the four humours from Greek philosophers. Yellow bile is connected to fire which is connected to Gryffindor house. Someone with an excess of it was believed to be bad-tempered: like Ron.


So, hope you enjoyed that little bite of knowledge. If you want to know about any other names just comment below. Don't worry, you don't have to have an account - you can comment anonymously. Simple dimple.

By Jess