J. Davidson - Planet Word

‘I’ve met six British prime ministers’Stephen Fry, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘having a black belt in tongue-fu’Kathy Lette, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘gutless spivs’Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, quoted by Nick Stace in ‘Taking Insults to a New Level’, My Telegraph , September 2010

‘brain-damaged’; ‘mangy maggot’; ‘the little dessicated coconut’Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, quoted by Patrick Carlyon in ‘Ex-PM Paul Keating the heckler we had to have’, Herald Sun , 3 November 2009

‘like being savaged by a dead sheep’Denis Healey on Sir Geoffrey Howe, Hansard , 14 June 1978, col. 1027

‘into the mysteries of Australian colloquial speech’Barry Humphries ‘The Adventures of Barry McKenzie’, Private Eye, c .1960

‘Barry is hugely observant’John Clarke, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘relied on indecency for its humour’Australian Department of Customs and Excise, quoted in The Mythical Australian: Barry Humphries, Gough Whitlam and ‘new nationalism’, Anne Pender, The Australian Journal of Politics and History, March 2005

‘It’s very seldom that someone like Barry Humphries comes along’John Clarke, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘The American influence is huge’Kathy Lette, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘the practice of spending the night on other people’s couches’Vicki Estes, ‘Seen the dictionary lately? OMG!’ Topeka Journal , 10 April 2011

‘a boring or socially inept person’; ‘the wives and girlfriends’‘Oxford English Dictionary: other new words and definitions’, Telegraph , 24 March 2011

‘ Wag is notable’Graeme Diamond, editor of Oxford English Dictionary

‘a protuberance of flesh’Dave Masters, ‘OMG in the OED? LOL!’, Sun , 24 March 2011

‘has apparently taken over from Shakespeare’Mark Liberman , Homeric Objects of Desire , 2005

‘D’oh … expressing frustrations’ Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2001

‘The Canadian election was so meh ’ Collins English Dictionary , ninth edition, Collins, 4 June 2007

‘widespread unselfconscious usage’Graeme Diamond, quoted in ‘Meh— the word that’s sweeping the internet’, Michael Hann, Guardian , 5 March 2007

‘He’s embiggened that role with his cromulent performance’ The Simpsons: Lisa the Iconoclast, season seven, episode 16, David X Cohen, Fox, 1996

‘there is a competing effect’Riccardo Argurio, Matteo Bertolini, Sebastián Franco, Shamit Kachru, Gauge/gravity duality and meta-stable dynamical supersymmetry breaking , the Institute of Physics Publishing, 2007

‘O hart tht sorz’Eileen Bridge, runner-up in the T — Mobile txt laureate competition, quoted in David Crystal, ‘2b or not 2b’, Guardian , 5 July 2008

‘Verona was de turf of de feuding Montagues and de Capulet families’Martin Baum, To Be Or Not To Be, Innit , Bright Pen, 2008

‘John’s girlfriend is really pretty’‘Say what? A parents’ guide to UK teenage slang’, BBC News school report, 11 March 2010

‘ John’s chick is proper buff’Phoenix High School, Shepherd’s Bush, West London, ‘Say what? A parents’ guide to UK teenage slang’, BBC News school report, 11 March 2010

‘ Jonny’s bird is proper fit’Holy Family Catholic Church, Keighley, West Yorkshire, ‘Say what? A parents’ guide to UK teenage slang’, BBC News school report, 11 March 2010

‘ John’s missus is flat out bangin’’Bishopston Comprehensive School, Swansea, Wales, ‘Say what? A parents’ guide to UK teenage slang’, BBC News school report, 11 March 2010

‘Berkeley is one of the most diverse places you’ll ever be’Connor, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘It can change in one day’Berkeley High Students, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘The word rap was used in the black community’H. Samy Alim, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘It’s metaphors’Kenard ‘K2’ Karter, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘The MCing or rapping is a verbal art form’H. Samy Alim, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘You step up into the cipher’ibid.

‘From a language perspective’Kenard ‘K2’ Karter, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘And that is what some people view as cultural theft’H. Samy Alim, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘My president, your country is dead’El General, ‘ Rais Le Bled’ (President, Your People) quoted in Vivienne Walt, ‘El Général and the Rap Anthem of the Mideast Revolution’, Time , 5 February 2011

‘The revolution is a social movement’Balti as quoted by Neil Curry in ‘Tunisia’s rappers provide a soundtrack to a revolution’, CNN World, 2 March 2011

‘Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, all must be liberated’El General, An Ode to Arab Revolution, as quoted in Hip-hop for revolution by Clark Boyd, PRI’s The World, 8 February 2011

‘Without words, without writing and without books, there would be no history’Herman Hesse

‘Writing put agreements, laws, commandments on record’H. G. Wells, A Short History of the World , Penguin Classics, 2006

‘For example, initially there would be a sign’Irving Finkel, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘They were afraid of disease and impotence’ibid.

‘Let us ask ourselves, positively, flatly’René Etiemble as quoted in Writing: The Story of Alphabets and Scripts by Georges Jean, Harry N. Abrams, March 1992

‘Ventris was able to see’John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B , Cambridge University Press, 1958

‘He who first shortened the labor of copyists’Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Oxford Paperbacks, June 2008

‘for there is so great diversity in English’Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, Penguin Classics, 2004

‘There is an ebb and flow of all conditions of men’Alain-René Lesage, La Valise Trouvée, Imprimerie Nationale, 30 October 2002

‘Diderot knew English’Kate Tunstall, Fry’s Planet Word , BBC 2011

‘We know he had these dinners’ibid.

‘An encyclopedia’Denis Diderot, Encyclopedia: the complete illustrations, 1762–1777, New York: Harry N. Abrams; 1st edition, 1978

‘It has been compared to the impious Babel’C.A. Sainte-Beuve, Portraits of the Eighteenth Century: Historic and Literary, Part II , translated by Katharine P. Wormeley, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905, pp. 89–128

‘This is the proportion …’Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson , abridged edition, Penguin Classics 31 May 1979