Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
The history of cud may be more exciting than it seems at first sight. Initially (long ago!), I was intrigued when I read the statement by Henry Cecil Wyld, an outstanding language historian, that the origin of cud is unknown.
Until recently, women were regularly dismissed as unable to compose music. In 1894, the French physician Havelock Ellis said ‘There is certainly no art in which they have shown themselves more helpless’.
Are you an avid fantasy fiction reader, or are you new to the world of dragons, mythic quests and magical worlds? Either way, test your knowledge of this most varied of genres with our quick fantasy literature quiz!
Ostensibly a tale of the adventures of a soldier, Homer’s ancient Greek epic Odyssey also has at its heart the remarkable story of Odysseus’ waiting wife Penelope, who is renowned for her patience and her fidelity.
The word smother “dense or stifling smoke” (often with smoke!) has existed in English for about a thousand years. It first competed with smorther (the spelling of the Middle English form has been simplified here) and conveyed an even more murderous idea than today.
Prince Hal addresses Poins in the Boar’s Head Tavern in William Shakespeare’s 2 Henry IV, exclaiming “Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction!
“Uh” and “um” don’t get much respect. What even are they? Toastmasters International calls them “crutch words.”
At a time when funding for urban infrastructure and the promotion of an overarching global goal—the hard-won SDG 11—have catapulted cities up the international policy agenda, it’s hard to believe that urban issues could ever have been considered marginal.