Word of the day is ‘quiddler’ (18th century): one who focuses on unimportant issues as a way of avoiding the important ones; who fiddles while Rome (etc.) burns.

Delighted to say I’ll be back on the road later this year with a brand-new show called Word Perfect. I very much hope you’ll join me! Tickets on sale from tomorrow.

A special call-out for a new series. If you are - or know - someone with unacknowledged talent and intelligence, we’d love to hear from you. geniuscasting.co.uk

Beat the urgent deadline to boost your State Pension by £10,000s. This is a snippet, don’t act without watching the full step-by-step incl how to get NI years for free on ITVX: itv.com/watch/the-mart… Or reading my full guide on MoneySavingExpert: moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip/#hiya

Etymology of the day: ‘book’ comes from an ancient root shared by ‘beech’, a wood that people used for engraving inscriptions. ‘Paper’ comes from ‘papyrus’, and ‘volume’ is from the Latin for a ‘roll’ of parchment. Happy World Book Day.

It’s World Book Day, and people have been having a word or two on the topic – 21 favourite posts. thepoke.com/2025/03/06/its…

This means a lot to me. Thank you to everyone who has supported the book so far.

I echo this. What a lovely way to end the week.

Word of the day is ‘whiffling’ (17th century): fickle, inconstant, and making it up as you go along.

Among the lost positives consigned to the dusty corners of the dictionary is ‘reck’, meaning ‘care’, ‘heed’, and ‘consideration’. Which means we can be reckful instead of reckless (and feckful, gormful, ruthful, ept, kempt, couth, consolate, and many more).

German was my first love. My favourite word (well, one of them) is ‘Fernweh’, ‘far-sickness’: the yearning for distant places. #shoutoutforgerman

Word of the day is the Japanese ’seijaku’: a calm and tranquillity even in the midst of chaos. Often found in nature’s smallest things. Photo by Xuan Hoa Le

‘Gigil’ has long been a favourite untranslatable: finding something or someone so impossibly cute you just want to squeeze them (not always great for the squeezee). bbc.com/news/articles/…

Guy shows an unusual history for a word in such common use, being derived from a proper name. Learn how the ‘man, person’ sense arose in the etymology notes on our updates page: oxford.ly/3QOxEZq

Word of the day is ‘erumpent’ (17th century), which describes buds and blossom that are bursting forth with vigour. Can also be used of energetic humans.

Word of the day is ‘foxy’ (19th century), used of weather that misleads you into thinking it’s extremely warm when in reality it’s pretty chilly.

I’m not sure what was going on in the 16th-century imagination, but this is at least a reminder that ‘to steal someone’s thunder’ originated with an event in 1709, when one theatre company nicked a thunder-making machine from another to use in their own play, leading the wounded

English is full of “lexical gaps,” words that are implied to exist but don’t, because we borrowed a bunch of words from Latin but not other, related words. Somebody made a chart to show it↓

A reminder of a pretty etymology to brighten the day. The ‘daisy’ takes its name from the Old English ‘dæges ēage’, ‘day’s eye’, because it opens its petals at dawn, and closes them again at dusk.