‘the beast with two backs’ | ‘la bête à deux dos’

27th August 2019.Reading time 10 minutes.

a man and woman in the act of copulation—English: earliest in Shakespeare’s Othello—perhaps a calque of French: earliest in Rabelais’s Gargantua (1542)

meaning and origin of the phrase ‘to lick into shape’

30th May 2017.Reading time 13 minutes.

This phrase originated in the belief that bear cubs were born formless and had to be licked into shape by their mother.

meaning and origin of the phrase ‘admirable Crichton’

26th October 2016.Reading time 9 minutes.

biography of, and eulogy to, James Crichton of Clunie in Heroes ex omni historia Scotica lectissimi (1603) James Crichton of Clunie (circa 1560-1582) was a Scottish prodigy of intellectual and knightly accomplishments, and the epithet admirable became traditionally applied to him. The Scottish scholar John Johnston (circa 1565-1611) used the Latin adjective […]