Susie Dent

“One of the joys of language is its constant evolution, and a lexicographer's job is both to track new words and to reassess those from the past.”

“In South Korea, some 20 million people share just five surnames. Every one of Denmark's top 20 surnames ends in '-sen,' meaning 'son of,' a pattern that is replicated across Scandinavia. British surnames have never favoured such neatness, and we can be grateful for that.”

“I love both garlic and onions, and this word pithily captures the rich tastes of both.”

“Probably my favourite winter-word of all. Apricity is the warmth of the sun on a chilly day.”

“The battle between server and servee is as ancient as it is well disguised, and it follows, therefore, that waiters have developed a private lingo that allows them to mock, complain, or simply entertain themselves.”

“I really was the nerd in the car that read vocabulary books. If we were going on day trips, I would quite like to have just stayed in the car with my German and French vocab books. It's embarrassing to admit to it now.”

“Can I get a mochaccino?': a statement that, for many, is worse than any number of nails down a blackboard. Not on account of the coffee - most of us drink Ventis aplenty these days - rather it's the 'can I get?' - three words that regularly top the list of British bugbears.”

“In the earliest days, make-up and moralising were intertwined. The 'cosmetic slops and washes' of the 17th and 18th centuries aimed to smooth complexions and revive a woman's 'bloom' - but their critics were never far behind.”

“No one expects the tone of an election to be mild-mannered, least of all a presidential one.”

“New words can spread like wildfire thanks to social media - you only have to look at 'mansplaining' and 'milkshake duck' to see language evolution at work - so why not old ones too?”

“The best time to catch tribal jargon is when it's not looking.”

“According to my parents, I've always liked to tune into the conversations of others. But rather than hope for a snippet of salacious gossip, it has always been the words themselves that I wanted to understand.”

“One of the things I noticed is that if you look up the word ambition you will see that when it's applied to women, it's almost always negative. If a woman is ambitious she's cutthroat, she's seen as more unpleasant. Whereas when its attached to a man it's far less negative.”

“The term 'psychological thriller' is an elastic one these days, tagged liberally on to any story of suspense that explores motivations while keeping blood and chainsaws to a minimum.”

“From the start, English has happily absorbed words from every tongue it's encountered.”

“The word 'eavesdropper' originally referred to people who, under the pretence of taking in some fresh air, would stand under the 'eavesdrip' of their house - from which the collected raindrops would fall - in the hopes of catching any juicy tid-bits of information that might come their way from their neighbour's property.”

“In the 1900s, bleaching lotions and skin-lighteners were a female imperative no matter what her colour, often carrying suggestive names like 'Fair-Plex Ointment' and 'Black-No-More.' The tiniest touch of rouge was allowed, but only if applied with great subtlety.”

“For the Anglo-Saxons, meat was the main meal of the day, which revolved around 'before-meat' and 'after-meat.' But it has ended up as the metaphor for the most basic: 'meat and potatoes' is as far from sassy - from 'sauce' - as you can get.”

“I'm an Arsenal fan and an even bigger Arsene fan.”

“Booze' was once a popular term in the slang or 'cant' of the criminal underworld, which may explain its rebellious overtones today.”