Yes, people are very imprecise on their use of words in this area. Regular is as definite a time interval as periodic. It should not be used when 'at appropriate but as yet undetermined times' is the intention. 'Timely' is probably good enough although for some vague reason I am averse to its use. I...

I reflected the other day on drawing the curtains. It seems to me that could equally mean to open them as to close them. So perhaps this is another contranym to add to sanction and cleave? Presumably this word is related to draught and drag and so there is no clue in its etymology. I wonder then why...

I have long been amused by the apparent distinctions between Closed and Shut. Have you ever seen a shop that was shut for lunch? In America, I suppose that would be a store not a shop. I think in Australia and probably England they are always closed. But shut is so much nicer a word. I think that ma...

How nice to have one whose origins we really don't know. Here's a thought: Maybe the g of gloom has disappeared? Is there a history of the disappearing g? Gloaming/loaming? Glance/lance? Glove/love? Glass/lass... no, forget it...

Deleted.

Splendid word, this one. But is it really so hard to trace its origins? I am not convinced by the ideas here. Surely drel is a standard suffix – spandrel, mandrel and perhaps others? Ahh! The internet finds also bedrel, a bedridden person; and a thongdrel, which is apparently some obscure Bhutanese ...

Everyone else has customers or, slightly pompously, even snobbishly, clients. But the medical professions have patients. When I visit my doctor, I go out of my way to refer to myself as a customer. Everyone winces a little, but I think it does no harm to remind them... There is a sort of suggestion ...

Thanks gwray for the Shakespeare quote. I went to see Twelfth night a couple of weeks ago at the main theatre in Melbourne, and that delightful piece escaped my attention. Well, I missed it. And yes, Pattie, I am sure my Australian dog would agree with the fowl swoop. Every day on his walk, he is at...

Interested in the suffix -le. Presumably related to the suffix -let as in hamlet, piglet, booklet...

And presumably also -lette that is manifestly a French equivalent to cover feminine words. Epaulette?

But what about 'Little' itself. Is that related too?

David

I see that many years ago we explored 'buffalo' and that buff as a colour reflects the colour in a hide. But while today exploring the use of buff as an enthusiast, I see that this appears to stem from the buff coloured uniforms worn by volunteer firemen. And further, the expression 'in the buff' al...

Apparently Pip, in Dickens' Great Expectations was called "young rantipole" by his older sister who thought him ill-behaved and disorderly. And in North America, Washington Irving wrote, rather picturesquely, in 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow': “This rantipole hero had for some time singled ...

Not sure I like patulousness for the noun. Surely patulence is sweeter?

Thanks bnjtokyo. Of course. I hadn't thought it through properly. It's just that in my experience Hermitage wine is synonymous with Shiraz - which I think is the same thing as Syrah. It is easy to forget that it's really a place when it is used in that way. Just as we often forget that Sherry is a p...

Really! A silent h! Well maybe in America but in England and Australia, the h is always pronounced and the emphasis is on the first syllable. The French word has been fully absorbed and anglicised. Even when Orwell wrote his Homage to Catalonia in what, the 30s? The American pronunciation is heard o...

Yes, perhaps lieutenant as a place-holder is a rank held in an 'acting' role while the serious officers are away. In the British army anyway, lieutenant is the lowest commissioned rank so presumably a sergeant or similar was co-opted to the role after the captain had been shot?