This blog is for everyone who uses words.

The ordinary-sized words are for everyone, but the big ones are especially for children.



Friday 25 February 2011

Word to use today - hiccup.

People have been hiccuping a long time. Well, to be strictly accurate sometimes they've been hikuping, hickoping, hickhoping, hecuping, hiccuping, hickuping, or hiccoughing (the last one is because people thought a hiccup was a sort of cough - but it never has been, never will be, and just makes things more difficult).

Even way way back in the 1100s, people in France called hiccuping hoqueter and in Flanders they said hiketer, which is very much the same thing.

And, I mean, you can't argue with almost a thousand years of hiccuping, can you.

Mr Charles Osbourne hiccuped about 43 million times over sixty eight years, which is the world record.
Then, amazingly, he stopped.

Hiccup: a simply brilliant word that has stood the test of time and should therefore be used as often as possible.

2 comments:

  1. You often put a smile on my face. Et voilà! Today, in Toronto, on my Facebook, nous allons hoqueter avec vous. Thank you, Sally Prue!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hoquetez pour l'amitie des nations!

    And thank you very much!

    ReplyDelete

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