While compiling the Oxford English Dictionary, lexicographer James Murray exchanged hundreds of letters a week with authors, advisors, and volunteer researchers. A new collection online lets you eavesdrop on discussions about which words should be...
Thanks to a project led by Professor Charlotte Brewer of Oxford University and research fellow Stephen Turton of Cambridge, you can now enjoy a trove of letters between James Augustus Henry Murray and his many correspondents during his work on what...
Betsy in Murray, Kentucky, used Quit your mulligrubbing during a card game, meaning quit complaining or bellyaching. Mulligrub is an old one: by the 1500s it could mean a gloomy mood, while to have the mulligrubs could refer to a stomachache or...
Squire in Murray, Kentucky, wonders about the expression hot as flugens, meaning “really hot.” The term flugens serves as an emphasizer or making money like flugens or ran like flugens or even cold as blue flugens. In the 1830s, many...
twazzock n.— «All he can do is invite us to examine our responses to two statements: “Your son-in-law needs a loan,” versus “Your daughter’s boyfriend neads a loan.” According to Murray, “that’s the...