There are so many words to learn, understand and discover as well as some interesting new phrases that have cropped up over the years.
Welcome to Dictionary Corner
For example:What on earth does Hump Day mean?
I guess a Camel would be happy to celebrate Hump Day on any day of the week!
Does it mean – Grab your camels by the hump? Is Quasimodo in town and which day? What is going on with this hump? I see this phrase on forums and it seems to pop up more and more in general chats!
Hump Day actually refers to the middle of the week, and specifically, Wednesday. It has become a popular phrase, implying that you have to get “over the hump” before you can anticipate the weekend.
So next time it’s the middle of the week, see if you can drop the phrase somewhere in the conversation and see what reaction you get. At least if they look at you with a puzzled face, you can wow them with your new found knowledge or just direct them here to get the lowdown 🙂
To help you get the most of your Hump Day why not check out my regular Wisdom Wednesday articles – the posts that speak for themselves.
In a world of coffee drinkers I sometimes feel in the minority. Not sure why, considering people have been drinking tea for centuries. In fact it was first discovered in China. Legend has it that it was found by The Emperor of China way back in 2737 BC. Now that’s a long time. Let’s take a quick look at the the Coffee bean history. The first evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears to have been in the middle of the 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen. Given that tea has been around longer how did coffee overtake the humble cup of tea as the hot drink of choice?
Let me re-introduce you to Tea as an alternative to that caffeine laden cup of joe 😉 you may be surprised, and even if you don’t completely stop your caffeine fix, at least it’s something else to try from time-to-time! If you’re already a die-hard tea drinker, maybe I can uncover a tea you haven’t yet sampled.
During the Han Dynasty around 202 BC thru 220 AD tea plants were quite limited and only the extremely rich or Royalty would drink a cup of tea! During this time tea also spread to Japan and was consumed by priests who enjoyed some of their medicinal benefits.
Tea arrived in England during the 17th Century and never left. It’s the tea you take at 4pm back in the days of old and it’s still offered when you’ve experienced a stressful event or shock – “Shall I make you a nice cup of Tea!” with the emphasis on the nice.
American tea was heavily taxed and so gave way to The Boston Tea Party which sounds lovely until you realize the political protests and American Revolution connotations but I won’t go into any political shenanigans here but I’ve linked to any useful background on the subject should you be interested in exploring that avenue further.
Luckily it’s all calmed down now, maybe they all drank a nice relaxing Chamomile Tea and moved on, but however they resolved their problems and differences we’ve been left with a wide variety of different teas and the list seems to be growing everyday. As the list of teas is huge come back from time-to-time to see what else I’ve uncovered on my tea adventures. I’ll pop the kettle on…
