Saturday Night’s Alright For Reading

Image shows a copy of Terry Pratchett's book Reaper man laying on a red blanket. There's a bubbling glass of Prosecco in my hand. Terry Pratchett and a glass of prosecco. That's my type of Saturday evening. Party on word nerds! Out of interest, what are you reading at the moment? #Reading #AmReading #Books #Pratchett #TerryPratchett #SaturdayNight #WordNerd

https://vcwillow.wordpress.com/2025/06/07/saturday-nights-alright-for-reading/

A word lesson:

- sensor: detects or measures things
- censor: to suppress things or shut people up
- censer: priests swing it and send aromatic smoke billowing
- senser: you when you just know a thing that you haven't seen or heard yet

Telling me to stop the verbal interruption? That's a censure.

Happy #SherlockHolmesDay! One of our earliest videos was all about Holmes – and his connections to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGJ1fdAdn5w

Happy #DinosaurDay! Time to dig back into our past videos, for the early history of fossil hunting and paleontology’s roots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9yNwRBlKtU

Happy #FlowerDay! Here are some lovely etymological blooms to help celebrate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7Dpzgcm9jY

Happy #LoveATreeDay! Have an arboreal etymology to celebrate! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl-WunKwjrY

It’s #TulipDay! Beyond being a beautiful sign of spring, tulips are notable for being connected to one of the first market bubbles, and we have a short video about that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TELUATe2auc

It’s #WorldCocktailDay! So what better time to pour yourself a drink and settle in to learn all about the history of the cocktail, and some of the fascinating connections of some iconic drinks, with our Cocktail playlist!

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlDwZNRMgsJK9YKaDhE7Gl-xQ_O2Ur8ZC

Happy #LimerickDay! In lieu of a (bad) limerick of our own, we’ll point you to our video about Verse, which talks about the basics of poetic form, including the limerick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxFzgH0y9Jw

For #NationalTourismDay, may we direct you to our video about the Olympics, Amateurs, and – it turns out – tourism? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im0C18vcyFE

Happy #NationalTeacherDay! Thank you to all the teachers whose work is so important. To mark the day, here’s our video on the etymologies and history of education: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR0YVsr8QhU #NationalTeachersDay #TeacherAppreciationDay #TeacherAppreciationWeek

It’s #NationalCartoonistsDay! Here’s our video “Marvel” about the history of comics and cartoons, to celebrate! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_V7GSoi314

Happy #MuseumLoversDay! Did you know that ‘museum’ and ‘music’ are related words? We got into that in our video on Music, but we talked about the early history of museums in this Endnote: https://youtu.be/tbvvu2NDL-A

It’s #BirdDay! So here are some bird etymologies to celebrate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HITkoa7q5J0

Happy #StarWarsDay! Here’s the surprisingly connected origins of "protocol" and "droid" (and why blue milk is kind of the thing that glues them together)! https://youtube.com/shorts/ibFTMbTBFAI

Happy #EnglishLanguageDay! For a look back at the origins of this language, here’s our video on looking for the Earliest English Word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5QxjzaL1Wc

Happy #ShakespeareDay! Why not celebrate by making it Weird – with our video about the history of that word, and its connections to Fate, Shakespeare, and witches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYPoTrHTXVQ