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Tongue In Cheek
The idiom tongue-in-cheek refers to a humorous or sarcastic statement expressed in a serious manner. History The phrase originally expressed contempt, but by 1842 had acquired its modern meaning. Early users of the phrase include Sir Walter Scott in his 1828 ''The Fair Maid of Perth''. The physical act of putting one's tongue into one's cheek once signified contempt. For example, in Tobias Smollett's ''The Adventures of Roderick Random,'' which was published in 1748, the eponymous hero takes a coach to Bath and on the way apprehends a highwayman. This provokes an altercation with a less brave passenger: The phrase appears in 1828 in ''The Fair Maid of Perth'' by Sir Walter Scott: It is not clear how Scott intended readers to understand the phrase. The more modern ironic sense appeared in the 1842 poem "The Ingoldsby Legends" by the English clergyman Richard Barham, in which a Frenchman inspects a watch and cries: The ironic usage originates with the idea of suppressed mirt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
18330518 PAGE Ten Pin Alley - Philadelphia - The Boston Morning Post
Events January–March * January 3 – Reassertion of British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. * February 6 – His Royal Highness Prince Otto Friedrich Ludwig of Bavaria assumes the title His Majesty Othon the First, by the Grace of God, King of Greece, Prince of Bavaria. * February 16 – The United States Supreme Court hands down its landmark decision of Barron v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore. * March 4 – Andrew Jackson is sworn in for his second term as President of the United States. April–June * April 1 – General Antonio López de Santa Anna is elected President of Mexico by the legislatures of 16 of the 18 Mexican states. During his frequent absences from office to fight on the battlefield, Santa Anna turns the duties of government over to his vice president, Valentín Gómez Farías. * April 18 – Over 300 delegates from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland travel to the office of the Prime Minister, the Earl Grey, to cal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Highwayman
A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads. Such criminals operated until the mid or late 19th century. Highwaywomen, such as Katherine Ferrers, were said to also exist, often dressing as men, especially in fiction. The first attestation of the word ''highwayman'' is from 1617. Euphemisms such as "knights of the road" and "gentlemen of the road" were sometimes used by people interested in romanticizing (with a Robin Hood–esque slant) what was often an especially violent form of stealing. In the 19th-century American West, highwaymen were sometimes known as ''road agents''. In Australia, they were known as bushrangers. Robbing The great age of highwaymen was the period from the Restoration in 1660 to the death of Queen Anne in 1714. Some of them are known to have been disban ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humour
Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: ', "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion. People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. Most people are able to experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny (such as a pun or joke)—and thus are considered to have a ''sense of humour''. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided by personal taste (aesthetics), taste, the extent to which a person finds something humorous depends on a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, Maturity (psychological), maturity, level of education, inte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English-language Idioms
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slang Dictionary
A slang dictionary is a reference book containing an alphabetical list of slang, which is vernacular vocabulary not generally acceptable in formal usage, usually including information given for each word, including meaning, pronunciation, and etymology. It can provide definitions on a range of slang from more mundane terms (like " rain check" or "bob and weave") to obscure sexual practices. Such works also can include words and phrases arising from different dialects and argots, which may or may not have passed into more common usage. They can also track the changing meaning of the terms over time and space, as they migrate and mutate. Famous slang dictionaries 17th and 18th centuries Slang dictionaries have been around for hundreds of years. The Canting Academy, or Devil's Cabinet Opened' was a 17th-century slang dictionary, written in 1673 by Richard Head, that looked to define thieves' cant. ''A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew'', was fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Barham
Richard Harris Barham (6 December 1788 – 17 June 1845) was an English cleric of the Church of England, a novelist and a humorous poet. He was known generally by his pseudonym Thomas Ingoldsby and as the author of ''The Ingoldsby Legends''. Life Richard Harris Barham was born in Canterbury. When he was seven years old his father died, leaving him a small estate, part of which was the manor of Tappington, in Denton, Kent, mentioned frequently in his later work ''The Ingoldsby Legends''. At nine he was sent to St Paul's School, but his studies were interrupted by an accident that partly crippled his arm for life. Deprived of vigorous bodily activity, he became a great reader and diligent student. During 1807 he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, intending at first to study for the law, but deciding on a clerical career instead. In 1813 he was ordained and found a country curacy. He married the next year and in 1821 he gained a minor canonry at London's St. Paul's Cathedral, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ingoldsby Legends
''The Ingoldsby Legends'' (full title: ''The Ingoldsby Legends, or Mirth and Marvels'') is a collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry written supposedly by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, actually a pen-name of an English clergyman named Richard Harris Barham. Background The legends were first printed during 1837 as a regular series in the magazine ''Bentley's Miscellany'' and later in ''New Monthly Magazine''. They proved immensely popular and were compiled into books published in 1840, 1842 and 1847 by Richard Bentley. They remained popular during the 19th century, when they ran through many editions. They were illustrated by artists including John Leech, George Cruikshank, John Tenniel, and Arthur Rackham (1898 edition). As a priest of the Chapel Royal, with a private income, Barham was not troubled with strenuous duties and he had ample time to read and compose stories. Although based on real legends and mythology, chiefly Kentish, such as the " hand o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irony
Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique. Irony can be categorized into different types, including ''verbal irony'', ''dramatic irony'', and ''situational irony''. Verbal, dramatic, and situational irony are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth. The ironic form of simile, used in sarcasm, and some forms of litotes can emphasize one's meaning by the deliberate use of language which states the opposite of the truth, denies the contrary of the truth, or drastically and obviously understates a factual connection. Definitions Henry Watson Fowler, in ''The King's English'', says, "any definition of irony—though hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted—must include this, that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same." Also, Eric Partrid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bath, Somerset
Bath () is a city in the Bath and North East Somerset unitary area in the county of Somerset, England, known for and named after its Roman-built baths. At the 2021 Census, the population was 101,557. Bath is in the valley of the River Avon, west of London and southeast of Bristol. The city became a World Heritage Site in 1987, and was later added to the transnational World Heritage Site known as the "Great Spa Towns of Europe" in 2021. Bath is also the largest city and settlement in Somerset. The city became a spa with the Latin name ' ("the waters of Sulis") 60 AD when the Romans built baths and a temple in the valley of the River Avon, although hot springs were known even before then. Bath Abbey was founded in the 7th century and became a religious centre; the building was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. In the 17th century, claims were made for the curative properties of water from the springs, and Bath became popular as a spa town in the Georgian era. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Idiom
An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, an idiom's figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning. Idioms occur frequently in all languages; in English alone there are an estimated twenty-five million idiomatic expressions. Derivations Many idiomatic expressions were meant literally in their original use, but sometimes the attribution of the literal meaning changed and the phrase itself grew away from its original roots—typically leading to a folk etymology. For instance, the phrase "spill the beans" (meaning to reveal a secret) is first attested in 1919, but has been said to originate from an ancient method of voting by depositing beans in jars, which could be spilled, prematurely revealing the results. Other idioms are deliberately figurative. For example, "break ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Adventures Of Roderick Random
''The Adventures of Roderick Random'' is a picaresque novel by Tobias Smollett, first published in 1748. It is partially based on Smollett's experience as a naval-surgeon's mate in the Royal Navy, especially during the Battle of Cartagena de Indias in 1741. In the preface, Smollett acknowledges the connections of his novel to the two satirical picaresque works he translated into English: Miguel de Cervantes' ''Don Quixote'' (1605–15) and Alain-René Lesage's ''Gil Blas'' (1715–47) Plot summary The novel is set in the 1730s and 1740s and tells the life story (in the first person) of Roderick "Rory" Random, who was born to a Scottish gentleman and a lower-class woman and is thus shunned by his father's family. His mother dies soon after giving birth and his father is driven mad with grief. Random's paternal grandfather coerces a local school master into providing free education for the boy, who becomes popular with his classmates (some of whom he encounters again in subsequent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
