Making words work better
IYAM, certain plants just shout ‘Christmas’, don’t they? Well, perhaps some are a bit shoutier than others. The traditional holly, ivy, mistletoe and winterberry are on the subtler side, while on the brasher wing we find Christmas cactus and poinsettias. And there are other plants which come into prominence at this time of year, especially – for me, at any rate – cyclamens and amaryllis.
The other day, reading the very engaging Ships of Heaven, a book about a ‘curated’ [my word] selection of British cathedrals, I was struck by the author’s use of the verb ‘to monetize’. ‘Struck’ for several reasons. (Actually, four – I think – as we'll see.) First, because the context in which they used it put the Middle Ages in your face in a way that forced me ‘to sit up and take notice’.
(This is a copy of the post I wrote for Collins Dictionaries.) Look up the word Turkish in the Collins Dictionary and you’ll encounter several compounds that…