The English language/vocabulary/verbal phrases

Kati wrote: ExittheLemming wrote: biannual http://www.thefreedictionary.com/biannual Which is it: i.e. twice a year or every two years? Means both, depends on the concept

Ok but would your creditor take the view that paying him after 2 years instead of twice a year be really just a matter of erm... 'context?'

Got a new batch for you here: precept, goober, psychobabble, exclusionary vs. exclusive, slippery slope, growing pains, nancy ( ), soot, opulent, under the weather, chlamydia, underdog, quid pro quo, furtive.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - January 09 2015 at 14:15

A diamond in the rough.

Kati wrote: ExittheLemming wrote: biannual http://www.thefreedictionary.com/biannual Which is it: i.e. twice a year or every two years?  Means both, depends on the concept

Argonaught wrote: Kati wrote: ExittheLemming wrote: biannual http://www.thefreedictionary.com/biannual Which is it: i.e. twice a year or every two years?  Means both, depends on the concept   There is a little bit of confusion here. The correct word is "bananual", which means either "as often as banana", or "as banana as often", or the other way around, depending on the consensually constricted content.     What's semiannual, though?

Thanks Argonaght, those quests with Jason are paying for themselves now

I was genuinely surprised with the origins of this expression:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark

(Probably because I loathed the TV show so never watched it)

Edited by Dayvenkirq - January 22 2015 at 14:33

We often assume that these old sayings and idioms are "as old as the hills" but this isn't always the case, especially when it involves some exotic animal that is not native to the country of the mother tongue such as a camel or a dodo. Of course many people living in rural England in the 18th century would have known what a camel was from references in the bible (the old "eye of a needle" parable), but they would never have seen one and certainly would not have associated it with a beast of burden. This makes me think that perhaps this phrase was an import from another language, possibly from the Middle East where camel-related idioms were more commonplace, so I wonder whether this phrase entered into the English language from the Jewish community.

Edited by Dean - January 28 2015 at 11:40

Aye. That's why he didn't call it My Fair Lady ...

A corpus delicti, to abet.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - January 30 2015 at 05:32