Word of the day

Today's word is il ponte, bridge in Italian. As I said to staff in a newsletter recently, for those of you interested in not being here sometimes, there is a treat coming up.In Victoria, we normally have one public holiday on a Tuesday - Cup Day - which creates the possibility of a four-day long weekend. The Italians have a word for a public holiday which falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday - a bridge, il ponte, and you can read all about them in this blog. Australia Day, on Tuesday 26 January, is a bridge. I'll be taking the Monday off, too.

Word of the day

I came across the expression knitted science in a friend’s Facebook status report recently. Needless to say it’s a whole world that has hitherto eluded me - a world set out in a recent issue of Discover magazine. From a crochet coral reef to a knitted frog spleen, it is all there. Needless to say, latter day anti-vivisectionists have seized on knitted and crocheted substitutions for animal dissections (such as that frog). Amazing.

Word of the day

Today's word is batpack. This is of course a near-homonym, and in normal Australian speech we often pronounce consonants indistinctly, so that many words sound the same. The next time you refer to a backpack in normal speech, say batpack. See if anyone notices.

Of course, in this world of rapidly-growing vocabulary choice, batpack is a word in its own right, too. BATPACK Pty Ltd recharges battery packs, of course. "Rip Curl's Bat Pack Pants are warm, snugly, and super comfy." And in baseball, the bat pack is, naturally, a pack for holding baseball bats.

Next word: digitalise.