Easy for You to Say!

I got a nice present for my four hundred and eightieth birthday from my better half there the other day - the latest edition (the 19th) of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable - a fine gift and a fine tome, presented to me, no doubt, on account of the unyielding number of references to fables, cables, ables and tables on the pages of this here blog a mine. Brewer's Dictionary has been 'much loved for its wit and wisdom since 1870' according to the blurb on the back cover and is described as both a 'scenic route to knowledge' and as a lexicographical 'treasure hunt' by the kind of people that would know these things. So for today's post, I've decided to put the Brewer to the test and see what it comes up with by way of 'linguistic miscellany'! And off we go with a random flick through its 1480 pages which lands me at the word:

honorificabilitudinitatibus! 

Sweet dee-vine! With, perhaps, the exception of my buddy, Soc, I would nearly chance a fiver that no one that I know has ever heard of that word - or if they have, then they most certainly would be the lucky winner of the FREE pint of Tuborg that coolly fizzes away on the counter in the bar of the Beggars Bush as I type - were it on offer, which it isn't today! Anyway, - honorificabilitudinitatibus - is, according to the tome, a 'concocted word' found in Shakespeare, which, to parpahrase, supports the theory that the works of Shakespeare were actually written by Francis Bacon. One kiddeths one not! And if you don't believe me, the word itself is an anagram of the Latin hi ludi F Baconis nati tuti orbi - which translates as 'these plays, F Bacon's offspring, are preserved for the whole world.' So now! Once again get thee to thy pipes ...! And how do I feel after enlightening you all with such a scintillating bijou of literary gold? I feel like Frank Muir, is who!

Frank whoooo!? :) More soon ...

I say, a fwee pint of Tuborg you say?