Tag: etymology
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‘Fake’: From murky origins to murky future
On 2 February 2024 I wrote a post entitled “Truth, post-truth and post-fake”. I started the post like this: “I was sitting at my desk trying to think about something I could blog about. For some reason the word ‘truth’ popped into my head. After that I … messed about on the news database Nexis, rummaged…
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The meaning of lockdown
The other day, my father in Germany, who is quite old, phoned me and asked what lockdown meant.* ‘Lockdown’ is now used in Germany instead of more native words like ‘Ausgangssperre’ (exit barrier, if you like). He especially wondered about the ‘down’ bit, as he understood the ‘lock’ bit and also had heard about ‘locking…