Sunday Rest: Word Not To Use Today: humbug.

'Bah!' said Scrooge, 'Humbug!' in A Christmas Carol, before the ghosts worked their magic.

And, yes, okay, he had a point: but sometimes even valid points are best ignored.

May these

be the only humbugs to decorate your day, and a Very Happy Christmas to...well, absolutely everyone, really.

Word Not To Use Today: humbug. There are loads of places this word might have come from, but really nobody knows. When it first came into the language, in the 1750s, it meant a joke, and the ways it might have taken on this meaning include the Italian phrase uomo bugiardo, which means lying man, and the old English word hum, which meant to deceive.

PS Why was the mosquito always in the pub?

Because he was a bar hum-bug.

Merry Christmas!