Word of the Week: Hangnail

It is something that everyone is familiar with but may not know what it is called. A hangnail is a painful piece of loose skin at the side of a fingernail or toenail.

 A hangnail.                                                         Photo: Rick P.

Word of the Week: Philtrum

Philtrum is the name of the small depression between the base of the nose and the upper lip.

                                                  Photo: www.hahastop.com

Word of the Week: Murder

You might be wondering why I have chosen such an ordinary word this week. Well, a few years ago I saw an English film with the curious title A Murder of Crows. I did notice crows in a couple of scenes but none of them was killed, so why this name? Intrigued by the title I did some searching and found to my surprise that murder is a collective noun for crows!

Indeed, there is a long list of fascinating terms for groups of animals. I mention below a selection of the more interesting ones. Here is an enlightening discussion on the origin of the word murder and whether terms such as the following were ever in regular use or just someone's idea of a joke. And another over here.

A venue of vultures                                    Photo: Sentrawoods

A murder of crows                                    Photo: Loz Flowers

• A shrewdness of apes
• A murder / parliament of crows
• A piteousness of doves
• A business of ferrets / flies
• A leap of leopards
• A parliament of owls
• A pandemonium of parrots
• An ostentation of peacocks
• An unkindness of ravens
• A descent of woodpeckers
• A cackle of hyenas
• A crash of rhinos
• A prickle of porcupines
• A cowardice of curs
• A convocation of eagles
• A sounder of pigs
• A venue of vultures
• A kettle of vultures (when circling in the air)
• An ambush of tigers
• A sleuth of bears
• A coalition  of cheetahs
• A mischief of mice

I owe this information to the following webpages: timesonline.co.uk,  ojohaven.com, thealmightyguru.com

PS: I have chosen a smaller font size for this post. Please let me know if you prefer this size or the one in the previous posts. Thanks.

Marriage vs Wedding

I got the idea for today's post while reading a news article about Shashi Tharoor's wedding which said: About 100 close relatives, including 20 from Pushkar's side, attended the marriage...(http://in.news.yahoo.com).

Many people in India use the word marriage when referring to the ceremony where a marriage takes place, instead of the more appropriate wedding.  However, the use of marriage in this context is not wrong, as is apparent from the second definition of the word shown in this screenshot from the Macmillan dictionary.

Nevertheless, wedding should be the preferred word since it refers specifically to the ceremony.

You can easily remember this distinction if you keep in mind the following film-titles, all of which use wedding rather than marriage. 

• My Big Fat Greek Wedding
• My Best Friend's Wedding
• Monsoon Wedding

Word of the Week: Triskaidekaphobia

Noun. Pronounced tris-kai-deka-FObia
Listen to the word here. 

Where's the 13th floor?                                Photo: Quinn Anya

The superstition that the number thirteen brings bad luck is common in many parts of the world. This fear is such that many hotels and apartment buildings don't have a thirteenth floor or a room numbered thirteen. This irrational fear is known by the tongue-twister triskaidekaphobia. I chose this as the Word of the Week as we have just passed Friday the 13th, a date which is feared to be so unlucky that it has been used as the name of a horror movie.