Oxonian

An Oxonian is a member (or former member) of the University of Oxford, England. The term is derived from Oxonia, the Latin form of Oxenford or Oxford. The term could theoretically also refer to an inhabitant of the city of Oxford, but is less used in this context.

However, this was not the context in which the word cropped up in today’s crossword. The clue was ‘Person from a place of lost causes’. We were left with o-o-l-a- when we gave up. The answer was Oxonian and I subsequently discovered that Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) called Oxford University "Home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties! " referring in particular, one assumes, to Oxford's support for the ill-fated Charles I .

Egregious

 
Egregious means exceptional; conspicuous; outstanding; most usually in a negative fashion; outrageously bad; reprehensible.

It is a most unusual word because its original meaning was exactly the opposite - “remarkably good, distinguished”. It comes from the Latin meaning towering above the flock.
 

Pleonasm

 
Pleonasm is using more words than necessary; redundancy in wording; the use of more words (or even word-parts) than necessary to express an idea clearly. A closely related concept is rhetorical tautology, in which essentially the same thing is said more than once in different words.
 

Salamagundi

 
Salamagundi means an assortment; a collection containing a variety of sorts of things. In particular it is a salad dish originating in the early 17th century England comprising cooked meats, seafood, vegetables, fruit, leaves, nuts and and flowers and dressed with oil, vinegar and spices usually arranged in rows around the plate.
 

Bisciones and Snakes in the Grass

 
A snake in the grass is someone you trusted who then let you down or turned on you.

I love quizzes like Eggheads - one learns a lot (and forgets ten times as much). One of the recent questions was "Which car manufacturer has a badge depicting a snake eating a man?" It gave three options - Maserati, Alfa Romeo and a manufacturer of which I had never heard. I thought I could picture the first two so I chose the latter. But, hey presto, it is Alfa Romeo.


The Alfa Romeo badge looks quite classy and heraldic but upon examination it does have a giant snake eating a man? Apparently the owners of Alfa Romeo - the Lombard Automobile Factory - wanted a logo that was associated with their home city of Milan, so they used symbols that Milan had used since the Crusades. The red cross is a typical Christian symbol of medieval heraldry and was used extensively throughout the Crusades. In those days seeing a load of chaps with red crosses painted on them didn’t mean “medic”, it meant: rampaging, sword-weilding nutters of dubious origin - run for your life.

The man in the serpent's mouth is even more controversial. It’s a symbol called a biscione (Italian for a large grass snake) - Yes, I've eventually got around the the word of the day. In a biscione the man in the image is the traditional Crusader's enemy, the Saracen or Moor (in other words a Muslim). So the whole serpent motif is all about the Christians Crusaders’ defeat of the 'infidels'.

Alfa obviously doesn’t like people to call attention to this but I find it fascinating and have to wonder how many rich Arabian Sheiks are innocently parading this symbol around the Middle East. I guess you could say anyone doing so was a snake in the grass.
 

Hodgepodge

 


Hodgepodge means odds and ends; a motley assortment of things; a patchwork: a theory or argument made up of miscellaneous or incongruous ideas; a collection of miscellaneous things; a jumble.
 

Namaste

 
Namaste (plural namastes) is a word of Sanskrit origin literally meaning 'I humbly bow to you'.

Namaste is the traditional greeting when saying the word namaste with folded hands and a slight bow in yoga; the pose associated with this word, usually with the flat hands held palms together, fingers up, in front of the heart and a slight bow.
 

Speculation

 
The word speculation means a guess; a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence; a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating or conjecturing (usually with little hard evidence);and an investment that is very risky but could yield great profits.

Speculation was a also a mild but rather noisy domestic gambling game which appeared towards the end of the 18th century and disappeared about a hundred years later. Jane Austen mentioned it several times, notably in 'Mansfield Park'.
 

Jocund

 
Jocund means light-hearted; gay (in its old-fashioned sense); jovial, exuberant; merry; in high spirits; exhibiting happiness. All in all, jocund sounds like a good place to be!
 

Swart

 
Swart is an obsolete or poetic word meaning dark-skinned; naturally having skin of a dark colour; of a dark hue; moderately black; swarthy; tawny; gloomy; malignant.

Her bed it was the brown heath turf,
And her house was put of doors.
Her apples were swart blackberries...
John Keats - "Meg Merrilies"