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World Records RSS Feeds607-1: Feedback, notes and comments - Satisfactory Several non-Brits queried the name Ofsted in this piece (the one instance of Ofstead was of course a typo), which I should have explained. It stands for the “Office for Standards in Education”, and follows the naming model for the British sectoral regulatory bodies, all of which have begun in Of- or Off- for “office” (Ofgas, Oftel, Ofcom, Ofwat, Offrail). There’s even Ofreg, though this doesn’t regulate the other Offs, but is the Office for the Regulation of Electricity and Gas. Ofsted is a little different in that it borrows from the first two letters of each of the key words in its full title. I don’t know a name for this formulation: strictly speaking it’s neither an acronym nor an abbreviation. Enchiridion As a (relatively) modern example of the word, Peter Weinrich noted he ...Feed Source: www.worldwidewords.org 607-2: Turns of Phrase: Haute barnyard - Foodies in New York were the first to encounter this term, through the writings of restaurant critic Adam Platt in New York magazine. A play on haute cuisine, the traditional “high cookery” of France, it describes a restaurant whose house style emphasises the quality of the ingredients and where they come from to a greater extent than their preparation. Fresh, good-quality ingredients, often organic and sourced locally according to season, are cooked well and served simply. The idea behind it is farm cooking at its best, hence barnyard. But it’s often at a premium price at the New York eateries first identified with the tag and which have since been described as “pretentiously unpretentious”. Haute barnyard has spread beyond New York, with sightings from both Australia and the UK; in the latter country it has been taken up by the restaurant critic Jay Rayner in particular.
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The V... 607-3: Weird Words: Hwyl - A stirring feeling of emotional fervour and energy.
Welsh speakers may like to be reassured that hwyl is included here because of its un-English look, not because it’s thought intrinsically odd. It is, of course, a Welsh word, but one that has become widely enough known in British English to be included in most dictionaries, though users often mispronounce it.
This is how it was described in Garthowen, by Allen Raine (1900):
Will was certainly an eloquent preacher, if not a born orator, and possessed that peculiar gift known in Wales as “hwyl” — a sudden ecstatic inspiration, which carries the speaker away on its wings, supplying him with burning words of eloquence, which in his calmer and normal state he could never have chosen for himself.
That’s much how it’s understood in English. But in Welsh the word more often refers to a complex and intangible quality of p... 607-4: Elsewhere - ’Tis the season? We’ve not yet had the pleasure of the Lord Mayor’s Show but already I’ve had my first meal of sprats* and the first Word of the Year has been sighted. It is from the Oxford University Press, whose annual publication on words in the news by Susie Dent came out on Thursday. You will have no difficulty guessing the area of life from which this year’s word has been drawn: the current financial crisis. Ms Dent has gone for the obvious, out of a dozen or more terms that have become all too familiar to us in recent months — she’s chosen credit crunch. As she points out, it isn’t even a recent invention, since it was first used in the 1960s.
* A sprat is a tasty small fish, the young of species such as the pilchard and herring, that’s fried and eaten whole with a dash of lemon juice. Traditionall... 607-5: Questions and Answers: Kippers and curtains -
[Q] From Ben Ostrowsky: “In a letter to the editor published in the New York Times on 29 September 2008, Lindsay Gray commented: ‘In Britain, we have an expression, “kippers and curtains,” for status-seekers who would bankrupt, even starve themselves, in order to project an image of affluence.’ Can you explain what, if anything, kippers have to do with curtains — and how these are related to status-seeking?”
[A] Thank you, and by extension Lindsay Gray, for reminding me of this British working-class expression.
Alex Hannaford remembered it in an article about her childhood in the East End of London that appeared in the Evening Standard in September 2003: “There used to be a saying ‘all... 607-6: Sic! - • “This,” wrote Max Everett, “is from a BBC article about Yves Rossy, the first man to fly solo across the English Channel using a single jet-propelled wing. He was quoted as saying, ‘I only have one word, thank you, to all the people who did it with me.’ And to Mr Rossy I only have three words, ‘That’s really very funny.’ Disclaimer — perhaps he was speaking in French, which would mean he probably said merci.”
• Joe Jordan reports that on 25 September the Sydney Morning Herald wrote about the New South Wales state premier who resigned earlier in the month: “Morris Iemma wants perks similar to those of his predecessor Bob Carr — including a driver, office and assistant worth up to $500,000 a year.” Almost worth his weight in gold.
• Still in Australia, Robert Young found this sentence in t... 607-7: Copyright and contact details - World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 2008. All rights reserved. You may reproduce this newsletter in whole or part in free online newsletters, newsgroups or mailing lists provided that you include this note and the copyright notice above. Reproduction in printed publications or on Web sites or blogs requires prior permission, for which you should contact the editor.
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