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Bollocks To Alton Towers Bookcover
''Bollocks'' () is a word of Middle English origin, meaning " testicles". The word is often used figuratively in British English and Hiberno-English in a multitude of negative ways; it most commonly appears as a noun meaning "rubbish" or "nonsense", an expletive following a minor accident or misfortune, or an adjective to describe something that is of poor quality or useless. It is also used in common phrases like "bollocks to this", which is said when quitting a task or job that is too difficult or negative, and "that's a load of old bollocks", which generally indicates contempt for a certain subject or opinion. Conversely, the word also appears in positive phrases such as "the dog's bollocks" or more simply "the bollocks", which will refer to something which is admired or well-respected. Etymology The '' Oxford English Dictionary'' (OED) gives examples of its usage dating back to the 13th century. One of the early references is Wycliffe's Bible (1382), Leviticus xxii, 24: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' specifies the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly followed the High to the Late Middle Ages. Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography. Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English language became fragmented, localized, and was, for the most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470) and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 14 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. Early works include ''Life of Mr Richard Savage'', the poems ''London'' and ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' and the play ''Irene''. After nine years' effort, Johnson's '' A Dictionary of the English Language'' appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated ''The Plays of William Shakespeare'', and the apologue ''The History of R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert McLiam Wilson
Robert McLiam Wilson (born Robert Wilson, 24 February 1964) is a Northern Irish novelist. Biography He was born in the New Lodge district of Belfast and then moved to Turf Lodge and other places in the city. He attended St Malachy's College and studied English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge; however, he dropped out and, for a short time, was homeless. This period of his life profoundly affected his later life and influenced his works. Wilson moved to Paris where he writes for ''Charlie Hebdo'' and ''Libération''. He also writes occasionally for ''The Guardian'', ''Corriere della Sera'' and ''Le Monde''. Work McLiam Wilson has written three novels: *'' Ripley Bogle'' (1989) *''Manfred's Pain'' (1992) *'' Eureka Street'' (1996) ''Ripley Bogle'' is a novel about a homeless man in London. ''Eureka Street'' focuses on the lives of two Belfast friends, one Catholic and one Protestant, shortly before and after the IRA ceasefires in 1994. A BBC TV adaptation of '' Eureka S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bullshit
''Bullshit'' (also ''bullshite'' or ''bullcrap'') is a common English expletive which may be shortened to the euphemism ''bull'' or the initialism B.S. In British English, "bollocks" is a comparable expletive. It is mostly a slang term and a profanity which means "nonsense", especially as a rebuke in response to communication or actions viewed as deceptive, misleading, disingenuous, unfair or false. As with many expletives, the term can be used as an interjection, or as many other parts of speech, and can carry a wide variety of meanings. A person who excels at communicating nonsense on a given subject is sometimes referred to as a "bullshit artist" instead of a "liar." In philosophy and psychology of cognition the term "bullshit" is sometimes used to specifically refer to statements produced without particular concern of truth, to distinguish from a deliberate, manipulative lie intended to subvert the truth. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Bercow
John Simon Bercow (; born 19 January 1963) is a British former politician who was Speaker of the House of Commons from 2009 to 2019, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham between 1997 and 2019. A member of the Conservative Party prior to becoming Speaker, he was the first MP since Selwyn Lloyd in 1971 to be elected Speaker without having been a Deputy Speaker. After resigning as Speaker in 2019 and opting not to seek re-election as MP for Buckingham in the 2019 general election, Bercow left Parliament. In 2021, he joined the Labour Party but was suspended in 2022. Bercow was a councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth from 1986 to 1990 and unsuccessfully contested Parliamentary seats in the 1987 and 1992 general elections, before being elected for Buckingham in 1997. Promoted to the Shadow Cabinet in 2001, he held posts under Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. In November 2002, Bercow resigned over a dispute concerning his support for the Adoption and Children Ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bollocks To Brexit
"Bollocks to Brexit" is a meme and grassroots campaign slogan used by people opposing Brexit, following the result of a 2016 referendum. The slogan received media coverage and legal attention, as well as being used by the Liberal Democrats. Merchandise The phrase was printed on yellow fluorescent stickers (reading "Bollocks to Brexit – It's not a done deal"), which were prominently circulated and displayed on anti-Brexit marches, including the People's Vote march in London on 23 March 2019. The stickers were also handed out at major political party conferences in the UK. ''The New European'', a newspaper supporting Britain remaining in the EU, offered a free "Bollocks to Brexit" mug with a subscription. A "Bollocks to Brexit" bus, parodying the Vote Leave campaign bus that appeared during the 2016 referendum, toured the UK and Ireland in 2018. The bus made stops in Maidenhead, Uxbridge and Islington, constituencies of Prime Ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson, as well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been described as a '' sui generis'' political entity (without precedent or comparison) combining the characteristics of both a federation and a confederation. Containing 5.8per cent of the world population in 2020, the EU generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around trillion in 2021, constituting approximately 18per cent of global nominal GDP. Additionally, all EU states but Bulgaria have a very high Human Development Index according to the United Nations Development Programme. Its cornerstone, the Customs Union, paved the way to establishing an internal single market based on standardised legal framework and legislation that applies in all member states in those matters, and only those matters, where the states have agreed to act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liberal Democrats (UK)
The Liberal Democrats (commonly referred to as the Lib Dems) are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom. Since the 1992 general election, with the exception of the 2015 general election, they have been the third-largest UK political party by the number of votes cast. They have 14 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 83 members of the House of Lords, four Members of the Scottish Parliament and one member in the Welsh Senedd. The party has over 2,500 local council seats. The party holds a twice-per-year Liberal Democrat Conference, at which party policy is formulated, with all party members eligible to vote, under a one member, one vote system. The party served as the junior party in a coalition government with the Conservative Party between 2010 and 2015; with Scottish Labour in the Scottish Executive from 1999 to 2007, and with Welsh Labour in the Welsh Government from 2000 to 2003 and from 2016 to 2021. In 1981, an electoral alliance was established b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna-Brita Stenström
Anna-Brita Stenström (born 1932) is a linguist whose areas of research include corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis. She has initiated and co-directed three online corpora of adolescent language: The Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language (COLT), Ungdomsspråk och språkkontakt i Norden (UNO), and Corpus Oral de Lenguaje Adolescente (COLA). She is Professor Emerita of English Linguistics at the University of Bergen, Norway. Stenström is a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Publications *Anna-Brita Stenström and Annette Myre Jørgensen, eds. 2009. ''Youngspeak in a Multilingual Perspective'' (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series) John Benjamins. *Stenström, Anna-Brita 2009. “Pragmatic markers in contrast: Spanish pues nada and English anyway”. In ''Youngspeak in a Multilingual Perspective,'' Stenström, Anna-Brita and Annette Myre Jørgensen (eds.), 137–159. *Stenström, Anna-Brita. 2006. “Taboo words in teena ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watershed (television)
In broadcasting, the watershed is the time of day after which programming aimed towards mature or adult audiences is permitted. In the same way that a geological watershed divides two drainage basins, a broadcasting watershed serves as a dividing line in a schedule between family-oriented programs, and programs aimed at or suitable for a more adult audience, such as those containing objectionable content (including graphic violence, profane language, and sexual intercourse, or strong references to those themes, even if they are not shown explicitly). The transition to more adult material must not be unduly abrupt and the strongest material should appear later in the evening. In some countries, watersheds are enforced by broadcasting laws. Cultural differences around the world allow those watershed times to vary. For instance, in Australia, the watershed time is 19:30 (7:30 p.m.), and in Italy it is 22:30 (10:30 p.m.). In some countries, the schedule is divided into mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asshole
The word ''asshole'' (in North American English) or arsehole (in all other major varieties of the English language), is a vulgarism used to describe the anus, and often used pejoratively (as a type of synecdoche) to refer to people. History The word ''arse'' in English derives from the Proto-Germanic (reconstructed) word ''*arsaz'', from the Proto-Indo-European word ''*ors-'', meaning "buttocks" or "backside". The combined form ''arsehole'' is first attested from 1500 in its literal use to refer to the anus. The metaphorical use of the word to refer to the worst place in a region (e.g., "the arsehole of the world"), is first attested in print in 1865; the use to refer to a contemptible person is first attested in 1933. In the ninth chapter of his 1945 autobiography, ''Black Boy'', Richard Wright quotes a snippet of verse that uses the term: "All these white folks dressed so fine / Their ass-holes smell just like mine ...". Its earliest known usage in newspaper as an insu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advertising Standards Authority (United Kingdom)
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the self-regulatory organisation of the advertising industry in the United Kingdom. The ASA is a non-statutory organisation and so cannot interpret or enforce legislation. However, its code of advertising practice broadly reflects legislation in many instances. The ASA is not funded by the British government, but by a levy on the advertising industry. Its role is to "regulate the content of advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing in the UK" by investigating "complaints made about ads, sales promotions or direct marketing", and deciding whether such advertising complies with its advertising standards codes. These codes stipulate that "before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove all claims, whether direct or implied, that are capable of objective substantiation" and that "no marketing communication should mislead, or be likely to mislead, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
