mcgillianaire | Entries tagged with words & phrases

If you wondered what happened, I got busy working the end of last year, and mixed with a convenient dose of laziness once I flew to Oman, failed to post the list for these two months. I've also decided to lump January's with February, so expect them early March.

01. Vitreous toilet
02. Be quids in
03. Ringpiece
04. Trumping
05. Neophyte
06. Cinque ports
07. Fanuary
08. Counting sheep
09. Shop-soiled
10. Breach of promise
11. Twat tax
12. Prevaricator
13. Autre temps, autre moeurs
14. Tikkun olam
15. Putting on the Ritz
16. Freemium
17. Verisimilitude
18. In clover
19. Docker's thumbs
20. Silly season
21. NEET
22. Laga kitnabhi payega dhokha
23. Busman's holiday
24. (Old) crumblies
25. Last Train to Clarksville
26. Prolixity
27. What the Dickens?
28. Rooting
29. Glenda Slagg
30. Aperçus
31. Bromide
32. Wednesday witches
33. Jugaad
34. Tendentious
35. Digital inheritance
36. Ostler
37. Athenaeum
38. Lazyweb
39. Po-faced
40. Pen pusher

Only the last three words are from December. As usual there's a handful of non-English entrants: including French (13) & (30), Hebrew (14), Hindi (22) & (33) & Latin (37), but not (6) which hails from Norman French and is actually pronounced "Sink ports".

[Poll #1817758]

01. Belfry
02. Aussie kiss
03. High jinks
04. Hard A
05. Tousled
06. Ham-fisted
07. Two bob
08. Martyr for/to drink
09. Kepi
10. Vituperative
11. (Infantile) Canard
12. Panjandrum
13. Tie-in
14. Bubba
15. Bagatelle
16. Silver bullet
17. Mivvi
18. Pendejo
19. In flagrante
20. Perfidious Albion
21. Munter
22. On the razzle
23. Put that in your pipe and smoke it
24. Its all gravy
25. Salutary
26. Coquettish
27. Bob-a-job
28. Slow Burner
29. Spotted dick
30. Leitmotif
31. Consequences

There's five fewer words than September and that's probably due to being at work for a couple weeks. In this edition there's two borrowed terms from French (9) & (15), a Spanish word (18), an Italian phrase (19) and an old parlour game (31).

[Poll #1796107]

01. Gooser
02. Elide
03. Be jolly hockey sticks
04. Screed (publication)
05. Blithe
06. Juju
07. Clammy
08. Catch yourself on
09. Having a mare
10. Waspish
11. Roil
12. Patsies
13. Solipsism
14. Mirthful
15. Al Sha’ab yureed eskaat al nazam
16. Flo Pass
17. All people that on earth do dwell
18. Dilettantes
19. West-Brit
20. Gorked
21. Rort
22. Snuff film
23. Spacker
24. Road to Damascus
25. Dog-eat-dog world
26. Troga
27. Mob Wife
28. Index offence
29. Faint heart never won fair lady
30. Hold the torch
31. Farthingale
32. Ho-de-ho
33. Moaning Minnie
34. Trustafarian
35. Soigné habitué
36. Segueing

One word more than last month but there now seems to be a degree of consistency developing in the number of words and phrases for each month. Arabic (15) becomes the fifth language to make an appearance in these posts, while there are no surprises with the inclusion of at least one (or maybe two) French words (6) & (35). I say maybe because according to Wikipedia, (6) is either of West African or French origin. Irish English makes an entry with two phrases (8) & (19), while we have another visitor from Down Under (21) courtesy

pappubahry. Not to be left behind, pop culture in the form of US TV comedy programme, Modern Family has donated two words/phrases in (26) & (27), while football (the sport) chips in with (16).

[Poll #1783828]

01. Jaan
02. Baraat
03. There are no atheists in foxholes
04. Dressed to the nines
05. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
06. Trompe-l'œil
07. Toe rag
08. Doubting Thomas
09. Bon viveur
10. Whisky dick
11. Escutcheons
12. Bier
13. Radge
14. Blues and twos
15. Pearly whites
16. Dotty
17. Dosser
18. Herbert
19. Rebarbative
20. The Scottish Play
21. Moral turpitude
22. Apotheosis
23. Vituperation
24. Yokel
25. Commissarial
26. Public piety
27. Decorous
28. Gable
29. Don't be wet
30. Dervish
31. Impish
32. Officious
33. Apposite
34. Milquetoast
35. Arrogate

Three fewer words and phrases to last month but we've got our first Punjabi ones at (1) and (2). French makes another two appearances at (6) and the rest are in English.

EDIT: Thanks to

loganberrybunny for pointing out the obvious flaw in the poll options below.

[Poll #1776479]

01. Social gadfly
02. Republican in Name Only (RINO)
03. Truculent
04. Trenchant
05. Pusillanimous
06. On the Q.T.
07. Bean counter
08. Leguminosae
09. Separate the wheat from the chaff
10. NIBMY(ism)
11. Obsequious
12. Pinch and punch for the first of the month
13. Courant
14. Succour
15. Milk round
16. Chatham House Rule
17. Take a haircut
18. InterCity 125
19. Lack of spoons
20. Flâneur
21. Kike
22. Gert lush
23. Alacrity
24. Mellifluous
25. Maelstrom
26. Waggish
27. Winsome
28. Lithe
29. Bunny boiler
30. Per diem
31. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
32. Clothesline
33. Bang to rights
34. Quisling
35. Febrile
36. Vestibule
37. Mendicant
38. Old Buffer

Last month's list has several more words than even May's record-breaking compilation. And we've got quite a mixed bag with an English word that's spelt exactly as its French derivation (20), two Latin terms (8) and (30), an acronym derived word (10), a few phrases including (9), (12), (17), my first Shakespearean quote (31) and a few regionalisms such as (2), (18) and (22). Five months of these posts and a total of 108 words/phrases.

[Poll #1766661]

01. Gloaming
02. Redoubt
03. Venal
04. Après moi le Deluge
05. Every which way
06. Maudlin
07. Bravura
08. Scrivener
09. Carpetbagger
10. Caroused
11. Kippered
12. Anchor store
13. Piquancy
14. Largesse
15. Bint
16. Bang tidy
17. Check yourself before you wreck yourself
18. Chew the cud
19. Moribund
20. Claggy
21. Churlish
22. Ignorantio elenchi
23. Signal-to-noise ratio
24. Splitting the baby
25. Miranda warning
26. Recuse
27. My giddy aunt
28. Pulp fiction
29. Stemware
30. Between Scylla and Charybdis
31. Fane

Many more words this month compared to May but just the one from French (4) and for the first time, one from Latin (22). There's also a couple of bawdy slang terms again (15 & 16) and a few Americanisms (9, 17 & 25).

[Poll #1757775]

01. Ebullient
02. Disquieting
03. Reave
04. Inchoate
05. Stramash
06. Stolid
07. Like turkeys voting for Christmas
08. Boffin
09. Anorak (slang)
10. Qui est très drôle
11. Dog's dinner
12. In rude health
13. Chupame los huevos

Not as many in the list this month due to my travels in America but for the first time I've included foreign languages into the mix with a phrase each from French (10) and Spanish (13). Interestingly, (5) is a Scottish word.

[Poll #1748691]* There is an error in the poll choices. 11-13 should read 11-12.

Since I first started using my new computer last month I've been bookmarking a list of memorable words and phrases. It includes words and phrases which I already knew and those that I've heard for the first time. I'm hoping that this way I'll increase my chances of using them in the future, either in speech or writing. I haven't quite decided how often I'll share my favourite ones on here but it'll probably become a monthly feature.

01. Bread and circuses
02. Motherhood and apple pie
03. Meither
04. Thrutch
05. More's the pity
06. Trite
07. Insouciance
08. Sangfroid
09. Phlegmatic
10. Lachrymose
11. Frisson
12. Samovar
13. Obstinacy
14. Osculation
15. Emollient
16. Just deserts
17. Peroration
18. Cavilling
19. Prurience
20. Norks
21. There's lovely isn't it
22. I want doesn't get
23. Nickel and dime
24. Brassic
25. Monged
26. Too easy

-My favourite of the lot is the Welsh phrase in number 21 ("There's lovely isn't it").
-I was surprised to discover that "just deserts" (16) wasn't spelled the way you normally pronounce the latter word.
-"Meither" (3) and "thrutch" (4) are regional words used (to the best of my knowledge) only in certain parts of Lancashire, while "Too easy" (26) is an Aussie expression.
-I can't properly remember but I'm pretty sure I picked up "Bread and circuses" (1) and "Motherhood and apple pie" (2) from posts made by

miss_s_b (or

lizw).

[Poll #1735725]

That Bloke In The Big Smoke

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life..." -Samuel Johnson

Entries tagged with words & phrases

Words & Phrases: November & December 2011

Words & Phrases: October 2011

Words & Phrases: September 2011

Words & Phrases: August 2011

Words & Phrases: July 2011

Words & Phrases: June 2011

Words & Phrases: May 2011

Words & Phrases: March & April 2011

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