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Here’s a royal theme to give us an excuse to play with some words. I am sure the pedants out there can explain whether “queen” is both singular and plural. I haven’t bothered to dig too deep on that one, but I have a suspicion that the plural of queen can be both ‘queen’ and [...]

Have I worn you out yet? There’s more! Or should I say, “Here’s More!”
The objective of the game is to decode the verbage and recast it into a selection of your own making – so we end up staring at some vocab we’ve hardly seen before. And it’s all about my favourite 2 R’s – [...]

As if ‘one’ wasn’t enough, here we go again with another dose of Logophile Lunacy.
The object of the game is for you to crack the sentence, decipher the basic message and re-compose some syllables that say the same thing, but expose us to vocab we may not regularly use.
So, have a go. You’ll have to [...]

The easiest way to add new words and meanings to your vocabulary is to use them and to repeat them over and over again. These keys are the Extra Two R’s I have mentioned before – Repetition and Recall.
So, to pump a few extra words into your head I’ve compiled a little bit of Logophile [...]

Which substance is behind the word aplomb?
You may hear tell of someone who displays much aplomb. You may, as I always did, associate that with someone who spoke with a plum in their mouth. The notion of determined correctness could come to my mind. A person with aplomb was always imagined by me as being [...]

Where is xenophobia normally directed?
Xenophobia, built on two Greek roots that trace back over 2,000 years, is yet a very young word dating back just 100 years or so. We all know that phobia is fear. All manner of things are deemed to be the objects of phobia (fear) today. I guess if you have [...]

Where will you most easily find a maelstrom?
The word maelstrom is likely to be used today to describe a bustling office, downtown traffic or hurricane winds. Turbulence, chaos, bustle and similar notions are linked to a maelstrom.
Originally, however, way back in the mid 1500’s, it had a specific meaning which put it on the map, [...]

Which sense identifies what is canorous?
We have five senses: taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight. Something that is canorous might possibly touch two of those. Principally, however, it is the sense of hearing that will appreciate that which is canorous.
Canorous comes from a base which speaks of song and melody. Anything that is pleasant to [...]

To what does halcyon best refer?
You may have heard the expression ‘halcyon days’ or enjoyed some halcyon weather. The notion of happiness or enjoyment is linked to this term, but many do not know its mythical origins. Halcyon originally referred (back around 1350AD) to a mythical bird said to breed about the time of the [...]

From whom would one normally expect an afflatus?
Afflatus comes from a root which means wind or breath. In centuries past much was made of the notion of breath – even back to the Greek word for spirit being pneuma – breath. Similarly the word ‘inspire’ comes from a root that means ‘to breath upon’.
And where [...]