The Wandering Pony

Me: “In my opinion Keira Knightley is a one-trick pony.”

Sister: “A wandering pony?”

Me: “What?”

Sister: “A wandering pony.”

Me: “A wandering pony?”

Me: “Ah. A one…trick…pony.”

Sister: "Ah. One-trick pony!"

Me and sister: *laughter*

(I still don’t know if my enunciation or my sisters hearing was to blame here).


Firstly I’ll point out that I no longer believe Keira Knightley’s acting abilities to be limited. I saw The Jacket and didn’t recognise her. I think seeing her completely miscast in King Arthur affected my judgement.

The point here is about how words and their meanings get changed over time. My sister and I both now use wandering pony instead of one-trick pony, and this is a prime example of what happens all the time in the English language.

Words and the English language interest me and I try to be as correct as possible in my use of English wherever I write, be it e-mail, SMS or Twitter, or even here on my blog.

In my work I interact mostly with people who’s first language is not English (and yes, I have made it past the talking loud and slow stage). This has made me more aware of the English language and how it is used, especially the use of slang, idioms and colloquialisms. Not that I use them less, but I am now much more prepared to explain them. In doing this I surprised myself in how little I understood the meanings but also how interesting the origins can be.

All this leads nicely into the latest book that my wife bought for me:

Port Out Starboard Home (or in the US Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds).

This book explains the origins of many commonly used words and phrases, and debunks many of their commonly believed origins. The introduction is a good read in itself and the rest of the book reads like a reference with each word or phrase explained under its own heading. A fascinating read.

And it was with happy surprise that I discovered the author was none other than the man behind the World Wide Words website. This is a site that provides a wealth of information about, as the tag line says, “English from a British viewpoint”. Well worth a visit and bookmarking….and subscribing to the blog.

One last example….

Tripe. We should all know tripe comes from cows (usually). But when an impressionable young child (another sister) is told by a parent about the tripe boats this simple fact somehow changes. Luckily this did not cause too much embarrassment or humiliation at school but even today I link tripe with fish.