New words, and when they were first used

The word 'gravity' was first used in 1504.
It's also the name of one of my short stories!

When I use words each day I generally assume that most words have been around forever. However, of course every word had to at one time be used for the very first time.

Here are the earliest known usages of a variety of words, according to racist dictionary Merriam-Webster*.

* See below.

1504: Gravity

In 1687 Isaac Newton published his theory of gravity. However, according to Merriam-Webster, the word 'gravity' had been in written use since as early as 1504. Hmm, something doesn't add up. How can you talk about something before it was even discovered!?

1627: Messy

Apparently, the word 'messy' was first used in 1627, so presumably up until 1626 people must have been really tidy.

True Or False: A dinosaur quiz featuring weird facts and bluffs

My latest short story 'The Ferociosuarus' is released this weekend. It features an exotic off-world creature, which as you can see by the cover looks suspiciously like a dinosaur. So sticking with the theme of dinosaurs, this week's blog post features a true or false quiz featuring dinosaur related facts and bluffs.

Have a read of the following dinosaur 'facts' and see if you can work out which ones are true, and which ones are bluffs...

1) Breaking the speed limit!

Velociodocus could run as fast as 72 mph! That's faster than the speed limit in the UK, and it's also faster than the cheetah, which at 50-70 mph is the fastest living animal known today.

True or false?

Quirks of the English language

There are over 400 million people in the world who speak English as their first language, and it's the official language in 67 countries! So this week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog takes a look at some of the quirks of the English language.

Hair(s).

1) We say "hair" when referring to lots of it, but we say "hairs" when referring to a few.


2) The word 'queue' is the letter 'q' followed by four silent letters.


3) A colleague asked me, "Is it pronounced 'ee-ther' or 'eye-ther'?
I told them it was either.

10 nerd jokes (part (5x4)-(6+9))

It's been over a year since I last featured any nerd jokes on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog, so that means we're long overdue for another round-up of nerd-inspired paronomasia...

Assault with a salt.

1) If I had 50 pence for every time I got a maths question wrong...
...I'd have £3.76!


2) Breaking news: A teacher has been charged with throwing sodium chloride at a student.
That's a salt.


3) Why is Stephen such a neutral name?
Because its ph is in the middle.