Recently, sailors on the nuclear submarine that sank in the Baltic Sea were isolated from rescue workers as their radio set got damaged. Luckily their radio operators knew the Morse code and were able to communicate by knocking on the sides of the ship. There are many explanations for what the words stand for: Save Our Souls; Save Our Ship; …

Precycling is a form of waste minimisation. It involves reducing the use of outer packaging and instead opting directly for what’s inside. This would involve buying things loose instead of opting for a pre-packaged product, bringing your own container to the store and shopping for locally-produced things. The rationale is to accumulate less waste.

Nerdic is the language used by technology geeks and is also referred to as ‘geek speak’. The language has words as bizarre as dongle and mashup. It’s considered the fastest growing language in Europe because a 100 words were added to it in the last 12 months. Some of its words are borrowed from English but don’t have the same …

The original Roman calendar had 10 named months from March to December and two unnamed months during winter. These two months were named January and February by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome circa 700 BC. January is named after Janus, the Roman ‘god of gates, doors and the beginnings’.

Guyliner is a kohl pencil for men. It’s getting popular among men in some western countries after celebrities started sporting it. The famous examples are Johnny Depp in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Tobey Maguire in Spiderman 3, and Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer of the band Green Day.

To make a bee-line is a follow the example of bees in taking the shortest route from one place to another. The expression comes from the belief that bees return to the high by the shortest possible way after they have gathered their food. And the shortest distance between two points is, of course, a straight line. But on their …

Acropolis is a Greek term, and refers generally to an elevated area in the centre of a city, acting as its focal point for cultural, religious, and civil activities. In particular, the term refers to the rocky hill at the centre of Athens, Greece, on which are located several ancient monuments, including the famous Parthenon, the temple for the Goddess …

You have no doubt heard stories about the wonderful endurance of camels plodding through the desert for days without a drink, living on the water stored in their humps. The claims for the camel’s endurance are often exaggerated but it is true that this animal can survive for several days without taking water. However, the camel does not fill its …

‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ is a figure of speech used with reference to a person who is competent with many skills but is not outstanding in any particular one. The phrase was in common use during the 1600s and was used as a term of praise. ‘Jack’ in those days was a generic term for ‘man’. Later, …

Tabla, Tambura and sitar have one thing common that they are all the traditional Indian Musical Instruments. Tabla is a drum, the sitar and tambura are stringed instruments.