G’day mate! Ready to take a trip down under and explore the Aussie idiom fair dinkum? It’s one of those terms that encapsulate the spirit of Australia, just as freedom might for the U.S. or tea for the Brits. So, grab a cold one, and let’s jump into the sunburnt world of fair dinkum. Is Fair Dinkum Australian Slang? You bet your kangaroo it is! Fair dinkum is quintessential Australian slang. Although the phrase is primarily associated with Australia, you …
Draughts is a British game played by two people on a square board, the draughts are red and black. English Draughts is played on an 8×8 board with twelve pieces for each player, black moves first. Each side attempts to capture the men of the other side by jumping, the first to capture all the men from his opponent wins. International or Polish Draughts are played on a 10×10 board with twenty pieces per player, the red or lighter-colored men …
Ditto means the same as what has already been said, the same as what has been written above, the same as what has been written before. Ditto may be a noun, the plural is dittos. Ditto may also be an adverb. As a transitive verb, which is a verb that takes an object, ditto means to make duplicates or to do again. Related words are dittos, dittoed, dittoing. Ditto comes from the Italian detto in the early 1600s, and was …
Is it one S or two? When it comes to the words desert and dessert, most people struggle with the spelling, not the definition. It’s easy to know if you want to order a slice of cake for dessert versus whether you want to learn more about desert animals, but do you know which is which when it matters? Learn how to pronounce these two words, when to use each, and how to remember their spellings. Desert vs. Dessert: What’s …
Dingo’s breakfast has recently been added to the Oxford English dictionary. Dingo’s breakfast is an Australian phrase that actually means no breakfast at all. A dingo’s breakfast originated with stories of the Australian swaggy, or transient worker, who crossed the land looking for work to pay for his next meal, often he was without provisions in the morning. Just like the dingo who lived on a subsistence diet, the swaggy would rise and find nothing to eat, so his “breakfast” …
Duct tape is a silver-colored strong adhesive tape, usually a few inches wide, that is used to repair a multitude of things. It is specifically manufactured to join heating and air conditioning duct work, though the uses for duct tape are uncountable. Duct tape is a noun that has also come into use as a verb, related words are duct tapes, duct taped and duct taping. Duck tape is a name brand of duct tape. The company history states that …
Daylight Saving Time is the practice of adjusting clock time to achieve longer evening daylight, usually in summer. Clocks are set an hour ahead in the spring, then set back an hour in the autumn. The mnemonic “Spring forward, fall back” helps those who live in Daylight Saving Time areas to remember which way to set their clocks. The term Daylight Savings Time, with an “s” added to the end of Saving, is technically incorrect, though it is in usage. Daylight …
To be in dire straits means to be in desperate trouble or impending danger. Dire means extremely serious. Straits are narrow passages of water which connect two larger bodies of water, navigating them may often become perilous. In the mid-sixteenth century, straits came to mean any difficult situation, one that carries a high degree of trouble. A newspaper column in the Rome News-Tribune in September of 2000 cites United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the first known user of …
Deer is the preferred plural form of deer, a hoofed mammal. Deer are ruminants. In most types of deer, only the males produce antlers. Deer antlers are shed annually. Some species of deer are white-tailed deer, red deer, caribou, moose, fallow deer, mule deer, roe deer and elk. Deers is an accepted plural, but it is rarely used. The word deer comes from the Old English word, deor, which means four-legged animal, beast. Also the Dutch word, dier and the German word, …
There are many terms used in English that are recognized worldwide due to being borrowed from other languages. These are usually words or phrases that are very specific to what they are referencing and lose their unique meaning when translated. Prima donna is one such word. Originally used to describe an Italian opera singer, it has been adapted into multiple languages to mean various things. Let’s take a closer look at the origin of this word, what it means, and …