Interesting Literature

The Interesting Literary Origins of ‘Selfie’, ‘Unfriended’, ‘Twerk’, and Other Modern Words

The true origins of some modern additions to the Oxford English Dictionary and other ‘new’ words

This post is a sort of sequel to our earlier post, about 10 seemingly modern words which actually have older, literary connections. In that post, we cast an eye over words such as ’email’ (actually found in print in the sixteenth century – with a different meaning, obviously!), ‘Google’ (found in 1907), ‘muggle’ (the thirteenth century), and others. Now, we’re looking at other modern words that aren’t so modern – even if they once had very different meanings from the ones we now associate with them.

Five Fascinating Facts about ‘Jabberwocky’

Interesting facts about the classic nonsense poem, ‘Jabberwocky’

1. The poem ‘Jabberwocky’ gave us a number of new words which are now in pretty common use. The most famous of these is ‘chortle’, a kind of laugh that is a blend of a ‘chuckle’ and a ‘snort’. But the poem – which was written, of course, by the fascinating Lewis Carroll – also gave us the word ‘galumph’ (to walk clumsily and noisily) and ‘slithy’, in the sense of ‘lithe and slimy’. ‘Jabberwocky’ may also have influenced our modern use of the word ‘mimsy’, though this remains difficult to determine (‘mimsy’ already existed with a similar meaning, though Carroll’s poem probably helped to popularise it). We’ve analysed the language of ‘Jabberwocky’ here.

Five Fascinating Facts about George Eliot

Fun facts from the life of Victorian novelist George Eliot, author of Middlemarch

1. She received £20 for her first book – which was a translation of a work of biblical scholarship. Before she reinvented herself as ‘George Eliot’, Mary Anne Evans (it’s also been spelled Mary Ann and Marian) was a translator of German works of ‘Higher Criticism’. Although of course she never attended university – no woman could until later in the century – Evans was exceedingly well-educated and undertook the translation of David Strauss’ Das Leben Jesu, or ‘Life of Jesus’, when she was in her mid-twenties. The book was controversial because it claimed that although a historical Jesus had probably existed, he was not the son of God.

Interesting Facts about Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Here’s a question for you. Can you name the three biggest-selling poets in the world? Shakespeare has to be in there (and he is – at number one in most accounts), but what about the other two? William Wordsworth? Homer? Alfred, Lord Tennyson? John Betjeman, maybe? His poetry sold a lot of copies in the twentieth century.

Five Fascinating Facts about William McGonagall

Fun facts about poet William McGonagall (1825-1902): his life, his work, and his legacy

1. William McGonagall is widely regarded as the worst poet in the English language. Nineteenth-century Scottish poet William McGonagall has enjoyed (if that’s the word) a posthumous reputation you won’t find many poets seeking: a reputation as the worst ever English-language poet. At one point, he had a job giving poetry readings in a circus: he received fifteen shillings a night on condition that the crowd be allowed to pelt him with eggs and stale food, like a minor criminal in the stocks. McGonagall seemed to like this arrangement, however – the money came in handy – and he was annoyed when the authorities put a stop to it.