Showing results by author "Susie Dent" in All Categories

An anonymous letter arrives at the offices of the Clarendon English Dictionary containing a challenge for the team of lexicographers working there. It's clear that's it's not the usual run-of-the-mill, eccentric enquiry. The letter hints at secrets, lies and a year. 2010. For Martha Thornhill, the new senior editor, that year can mean only one thing: the summer her brilliant, beautiful older sister Charlie went missing.

Whatever you need, Susie Dent has a word for it. Do you know the name for someone who loves reading in bed, or what a binfluencer does? How about the medieval invention of Lubberland as a place for lazy teenagers, or the story of Mayday as a request for help? Lexicographer extraordinaire and...

From 1st January to 31st December the listener will discover a curious coinage or a fascinating etymological fact linked to that particular day - from the dramatic true story behind stealing someone's thunder to the original Jack the Lad. Word Perfect gathers all her very best discoveries from the true origin of freelancer which comes from knights who were free to use their lance for whoever paid most, rather than being tied to a single lord. (Also secretaries kept your secrets so were secretries).

Learn how to decode the private languages that are swapped around us every day - amongst cabbies and paramedics, soap stars and comedians, cricketers and barristers - in Susie Dent's unique and witty guide to Britain's modern tribes. Did you know that a soldier's biggest social blunder is called 'jack brew' - making yourself a cuppa without making one for anyone else? That twitchers have an expression for a bird that can't be identified - LBJ (the letters stand for little brown job)?

Brought to you by Penguin. Susie Dent, bestselling author, broadcaster and word expert, is on a mission to find 100 words and phrases that bring people together. There are times when the world feels more divided than ever. But it is important to remember the things that unite rather than divide...

Brought to you by Penguin. Susie Dent, bestselling author, broadcaster and word expert, is on a mission to find light in the deepest, darkest corners of our language. It takes just a short browse through the dictionary to spot how it is filled with negative words. But Susie has searched far and...

Whether it's the distress of a bad haircut (AGE-OTORI) or longing for the food someone else is eating (GROAKING), the pleasure found in other people's happiness (CONFELICITY) or the shock of jumping into icy water (CURGLAFF), there are real words to pinpoint exactly how you feel and Susie Dent, Queen of Countdown's Dictionary Corner and lexicographer extraordinaire, is going to help you find them. Here are 1001 terms everyone needs, whether it's the best kind of hug (CWTCH), the relief found in swearing (LALOCHEZIA), or the ability to endure till the end (PERTOLERANCE).

When mysterious symbols appear as graffiti around Oxford, lexicographer Martha Thornhill recognises them from a runic alphabet created by a deceased fantasy writer whose papers she once worked on. But this is no publicity stunt, and tensions intensify when further graffiti is found near the body of a university lecturer. Martha is not the only one to have doubts when the suspicious death is ruled by police as suicide. Called upon to lend their linguistic expertise to the case, Martha and her colleagues begin to unearth a tragedy that extends beyond the ancient walls of the university.