Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten Old-fashioned Profanities
Swearing has come a long way from 'bejabbers' and 'crinkum-crankum'. They're just two of Susie Dent's favourite old-fashioned profanities, in this...
Posts by: Susie Dent
Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten words for how you might be feeling
Here are ten descriptors from the historical dictionary that you can dip into whenever you are looking for the mot juste for your state of mind (or,...
Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten words to pack for your travels
It was apparently Ralph Waldo Emerson who first told us that the journey is more important than the destination. It’s become such a cliché that we of...
Ten words for the Euros Final
Sometimes situations are so unusual they call for extraordinary words - or at least different ones. As Sunday’s showdown looms, we know it’s going to...
Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten origins to make kids laugh, gasp or cringe
Most children won't associate reading the dictionary with their idea of 'fun', but these words from Susie Dent might inspire something - if not a...
Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten words that have lost their oomph
This week, Susie Dent has found ten of her favourite examples of semantic bleaching. ‘What is semantic bleaching?’, we hear you ask. Well, keep rea...
Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten curiosities in the English language
Life is good. It's a bank holiday weekend and Susie Dent has provided the definitive list of the ten best curiosities in the English language....
Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten lexical gaps
What is the ‘drink’ equivalent of ‘feeding’ someone? What do you call the mortification of tripping over in public and trying to recover your aplomb?...
Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten malaphors
Malaphors - a blend of malapropisms and metaphors. Whether you like them, dislike them, or still aren't entirely sure what they are, this week's top...
Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Best ten words from the Scots dictionary
I arrived late to the beauty of Scots. While I have been steeped in the vocabulary of the Oxford English Dictionary for over three decades, it is only...
Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten words to make you sigh
Have you suspired recently? Many of us have, possibly without knowing it, for ‘suspire’ is a beautiful, all-but-forgotten word from the 15th cen...
Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten revealing British place names
Most of us have encountered some of the more bizarre place names in Britain. Little Snoring, Itchingdon, Pity Me, and, of course, Shitterton, have all...
