Tag: art

Categories
Wordpower

Must-Know Words from the September 2025 OED Update

Hot off the press!

This September the Oxford English Dictionary updated its entries. This includes words, phrases or new definitions of words that already existed.I love updated words as a few of these definitely indicate the way we live in the 21st century. And that’s just it, language reflects life.

Here are a handful of my favourites, in no particular order. All definitions in italics are provided by the Oxford English Dictionary.

Al desko

An adverb that indicates an activity done at a desk, inspired by the Italian phrase ” al fresco.” Anyone who has ever worked in an office can probably relate to the idea of an al desko lunch. Deskfast –“Breakfast eaten at work, typically at a desk in an office.” also makes the list.

Have you deskfasted at any time in your life?

Deplatforming

Definition: ” “The action or practice of preventing a person, group, or organization from contributing to a public forum or debate.”

Speak to Donald Trump about this one.

Binge viewing

Thanks to streaming services for this one. We all know what this is (and maybe indulge in it ourselves) but you can rest assured that binge viewing and binge-viewers are now officially in the dictionary. Its predecessor, binge watching, that is ” the practice of watching several episodes of a TV show on one occasion, usually by means of DVDs or digital streaming” was admitted to the OED in 1998.

So a binge-watch might be a one-off activity but binge viewing is next level, defined as “The activity or practice of viewing television, film, video content on social media, etc., for intensive or extended periods, esp. by watching multiple episodes of a particular programme, series, etc., consecutively or in rapid succession. 

Are you guilty of binge viewing or not?

Crackalack

This one is U.S. slang, nothing wrong with that. It’s a verb generally used in present participle as in ” What’s crackalacking?” in other words, what’s going on?

You’ve got to admit that it’s also quite enjoyable. Try it out and let me know how it goes.

Asparagussy

Okay, not a terribly useful adjective if you don’t talk about asparagus a lot, but this word just rolls off the tongue if you need to describe erm, an asparagus, for example.

The full list can be accessed here: https://www.oed.com/discover/new-words-in-the-oed-september-2025-update/

Which one is your favourite? How would you use it in a sentence? Let me know!

Categories
The Victorians

From Penny Lick to Ice-Cream Cone

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/Penny_Lick_Glasses_Author Linda Spashett 

The Penny Lick

We tend to imagine the Victorians were all top hats, stiff collars and serious faces, but it’s a fact that they also had a sweet tooth. By the late 1800s, ice-cream had become the ultimate street food. For just one penny, you could enjoy a refreshing scoop from a colourful street cart on a hot day. Enter the penny lick.

The idea was simple. Vendors would place a blob of ice-cream into a thick little glass with a shallow dip at the top. You’d lick it clean (hence the name), hand the glass back, and off it would go to the next eager customer. Sadly, the Victorians were not so aware of the importance of hygiene or the existence of germs. This, combined with lack of pasteurised milk ( yet to be a legal requirement ) and the prevalence of common diseases like cholera and tuberculosis, meant passing around the same unwashed glass turned out to be a recipe for disaster.

The penny licks were banned in London in 1899 after a medical report linked the re-use of unwashed glassware to the rise of tuberculosis. Along came a much better idea: the edible cone. Not only was it safer, it was also tastier and you got to eat the container as well as the ice-cream.

The Ice-Cream Cone

But who invented the ice-cream cone? As usual, the story is not clear cut. One idea is that Ernest Hamwi, a Syrian immigrant in New York, improvised an ice-cream from a Syrian pastry, called zalabia, in 1904. Another theory credits the invention of the cone to Italo Marchiony, an Italian immigrant in New York, who created ice-cream containers made from dough, although they were more cup-shaped than actual cones.

By Agnes B. Marshall – Barnebys, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org

Another earlier contender was Agnes Marshall, who ran a cookery school in London and published The Book of Ices in 1885. The publication comprised 170 sweet recipes with ice-cream figuring prominently. A later offering, her Book of Cookery in 1888, made reference to an edible cone and was called a cornet. Although the cornet was actually designed to be eaten using cutlery, Agnes Marshall is also regarded as a pioneer of ice-cream cornets. In 1894 the follow-up to The Book of Ices arrived, namely Fancy Ices – see book cover above.

So next time you’re happily munching on a ice-cream, spare a thought for the Victorians.  Without their dodgy glassware, we might never have had the immense joy of the cone. Are you an ice-cream lover?