You are not alone: the word “sonder”
I recently came across the word “sonder” Coined in 2012 by John Koenig, whose project, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, aims to come up with new words for emotions that…
Category: words
“What is Beauty?” considered in Dungloe courthouse
An interesting tale from the Donegal courts. A vet who set up a clinic in Bunbeg was denied certification by the veterinary authorities as the word “beauty” was in the…
“the unfortunate matter of the suffix -anus”
I am pretty sure I have overshared from John Wright’s “The Naming of the Shrew”but ah sure one more for the road: First, the unfortunate matter of the suffix -anus.…
“Drunker than nine hundred dollars”
Recently I’ve been reading “The Filthy Thirteen: From the Dustbowl to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest – The True Story of the 101st Airborne’s Most Legendary Squad of Combat Paratroopers” by Jake…
The perils of quoting out of context
The Samuel Johnson Soundbite Page is a trove of quotable bits from the Great Cham himself. I came across this post on the perils of taking quotes from Johnson’s Rasselas…
“worth seeing yes, but not worth going to see”: An article on Samuel Johnson and Ireland, written for the Johnson Tercentenary in 2009
Going through old emails, I came across this. It was written for History Ireland magazine who accepted it… but I don’t think it ever appeared. One for the 310th anniversary…
This Be The Best
In 2013 I entered this in one of the Spectator’s poetry competitions, if memory serves a version of a well-known poem endeavouring to convey the precisely opposite message. With apologies…
Happy 50th Birthday Ballocephala verrucospora
I’ve posted quite a few bits from John Wright’s wonderful “The Naming of the Shrew” . Quite a few, in fact. It is quite the treasure trove of entertaining and informative material. I have taken…
Séamus Sweeney 