This day, 4 July, in 1998, the China-Kazakhstan border became the first undisputed border between China and the Commonwealth of Independent States, as Chinese President Jiang Zemin...
Our eldest daughter destroyed a whole kettle. I won’t be totally surprised if this daughter does, too.
It is always a busy device in any kitchen of ours. But it’s surely the first year of a new human life which kills a kettle. Nevermind the pre-boiling needed for the milk formula; it’s that sterilising of absolutely everything.
8 years ago, we had one fizzle out on us. Fair enough, we thought. And, for a short while, we made do with boiling water on the stove.
In the UK, with a measly supply...
Nanjing isn’t an English verb. It probably never will be.
Like Darjeeling or Wyoming, our brains probably have to work hard to stop thinking of these proper nouns as verbs. That “ing” ending is a red herring we all know better than to actually hear.
Shanghai, of course, is a verb. It’s a bit like “press-ganged”. If you’ve forgotten the meaning, go and check out the Charlie Chaplin film ‘Shanghaied’.
Japan is an English verb as well. If an object is japanned, it has been finished with a thick shiny lacquer;...
The term, “flatscreen TV”, continues to be used in 2023. I sometimes wonder why. Seems to denote value, luxury, modernity. “Police seized 15 stolen flatscreen television sets”; “The room features a mini-bar and flatscreen TV”.
It’s actually been impossible to buy a new TV which isn’t flat for at least 15 years, making the “flatscreen” preface useless. Yet it persists.
There’s a name for this; “redundancy”.
Other examples include “each and every”, “balsa wood” or “cease and desist”.
Like bad handwriting, these are perpetrated more often by first language users, because they rely...
Alcohol makes you mellow and unconstrained. And then it makes you boisterous and shouty. Caffeine banishes fatigue from the limbs and the brow, then makes you arrogant and shouty. Such are the devils we know.
There’s a huge variety of delivery methods to these legal, reality distorters; some fast, some slow, some calorific, some less so. And it’s the flavours and occasions which influence how we choose to take them; chocolate or yerba matte, sake or champagne.
Urban legend suggests that lining up licquors in the right order may prevent...
