

Paul Anthony Jones
Joined: Jun 20, 2014
Paul Anthony Jones is a writer and musician from Newcastle upon Tyne. He is the author of word origins guide Haggard Hawks and Paltry Poltroons, and runs its tie-in Twitter account @HaggardHawks.


What Exactly Are Your P’s and Q’s?

13 Mnemonic Sentences To Boost Your General Knowledge

25 Words That Don’t Mean What You Think They Do
10 Body Parts Hiding in the Dictionary
Some of our favorite words come from body parts. Scratch your 'caput' over the origins of these anatomically derived terms.
10 Little-Used Shakespearisms
Not all of Shakespeare’s snappiest phrases and expressions caught on.
24 Notoriously Unrhymable Words (That Actually Have Rhymes)
Stop the presses—there is a rhyme for orange, and for purple. You just have to get creative (and maybe a little scientific).
10 Backwards Words That Ended Up In The Dictionary
From allerednic to yob, these ananyms and semi-ananyms have backed their way into the dictionary.
The Proper Names of 17 Bodily Functions
The next time you interrupt an important meeting with a ructus or a borborygmus, you’ll at least have the perfect word for it.
18 Words to Welcome Spring
Unless we have some winnol-weather or lamb-blasts on the way, it seems spring is finally coming.
43 Old English Insults
Next time you need to win an argument, try dropping one of these old-fashioned English insults.
23 Delicious Words and Phrases For Anyone Who Loves Their Food
Expand your vocabulary, as well as your Yule-hole, with these delectable words suitable for true gourmands.
15 Words That Aren’t As Straightforward As They Look
Despite what you may have guessed, the "ham" in 'hamburger' doesn't mean meat. Here are 14 other words that might surprise you.
20 Paradoxes That Will Boggle Your Mind
A good paradox can befuddle the best of us. If you're in the mood to narrow your brow at seemingly irreconcilable facts, have we got a list for you.
15 Words for Gossips and Chatterboxes
We all know someone who never seems to stop talking. They’re a yammerer, a babbler, a chatterbox—but they’re also a blatherskite, a clatterfart, and a twattle-basket.
11 Words That Started Out As Spelling Mistakes
Language is a continual process of evolution, but these words—from pea to sherry—changed thanks to outright mistakes.