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I love how the silhouettes of winter trees give the skyline a jaggier rhythm, unlike the smooth legato of summer lushness. As I look out from my second-floor study, I feel airborne, level as I am with the middle branches of the beech trees in the grounds behind our house. Mercifully, they are protected by TPOs (Tree Protection Orders).
Self-evidently, it’s a combination of shrink + (in)flation. What it refers to is a kind of closet inflation or inflation by stealth: manufacturers don’t put the price of a good up, which would constitute real price inflation, but instead reduce the size of the good.
In simple terms, you get less stuff for the same amount of dosh, less bang for your buck.
Oops! Collins failed to post this in time for last Friday. Never mind. ‘Meglio tardi che mai’, I always say. After the failure of the…
Continue reading → Bonfire or Guy Fawkes Night – Collins Dictionary Language Blog
My language notes for Collins Dictionaries on COP26. With COP26 currently underway in Glasgow, we look at the large and constantly evolving lexicon of climate…
Apart from those phrases below mentioned by Mencken, bee’s knees belonged to a broad menagerie of fanciful animal phrases, including the kipper’s knickers and the cuckoo’s chin. Made endearing by its rhyme, it has survived along with the cat’s whiskers/pyjamas.
Nevertheless, journalists routinely use carthorse used to describe different classes of people, especially sportspeople. Those people are mainly men, but there are exceptions.
Jeremy Butterfield Editorial 