This blog is for everyone who uses words.

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



Tuesday 7 August 2012

Thing To Do Today: jump.

No, it's all right, this needn't require too much effort. You can jump a fence if you like, but if not you can always jump on a bus - though please don't jump the bus, because that would mean travelling without paying.

You could jump-start a car with jump leads (but don't jump any traffic lights once you've done it).

You can jump one piece over another at draughts (checkers) to take it, or make a jump bid at bridge to show a very strong hand - behaviour which may make your partner jump with surprise.

You can jump bail, or jump a queue - though, again, I'd rather you didn't.

 I suppose, if too exhausted even for any of this, you could even jump a few lines of this post.

In Britain we all of us wear jumpers though in the USA they don't, because while the British jumper is a sweater, the US jumper is a pinafore dress. 

We can all wear a jump suit, though, if we have the figure for it and don't mind looking like aliens.

There are those of us who jump all the time - jumping spiders, jumping mice:



 jumping beans, and jump jockeys (who race over jumps).

Best of all, in the Caribbean we can have a jump-up, which is a carnival, or elsewhere we can have a jump, which can be a dance.

So let's all jump to it, shall we?

Thing To Do Today: jump. This word arrived in the 1500s and is said to be an imitation of...hm, my Collins dictionary isn't saying of what, exactly. Jumper meaning an item of clothing comes from the Old French jupe from the Arabic jubbah, a long loose coat.

2 comments:

  1. I love all these jumps. I do love words and found your blog via Adele Geras. From there it was only a short jump to here!

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  2. Thanks, Rosalind. It's amazing how we use these little words without stopping to think about them, and I DO think they're all the shinier for a bit of loving.

    Hope very much you enjoy playing in The Word Den.

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