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Feb 26, 2021
This week’s theme
Toponyms

This week’s words
Queenborough mayor
borstal
Poplarism
Shrewsbury clock
Scarborough warning

UK Toponyms
The map we followed this week

This week’s comments
AWADmail 974

Next week’s theme
Words coined after Gulliver’s Travels
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

Scarborough warning

PRONUNCIATION:
(SKAR-buh-ruh war-ning)

MEANING:
noun: A very short notice or no notice.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Scarborough, a town on the northeast coast of the UK. It’s unclear how Scarborough became associated with this idea though one conjecture is about robbers being given summary punishment. Earliest documented use: 1546.

USAGE:
“Come if you must, but winter’s here --
Old-fashioned Scarborough warning.”
Paul Routledge; Lines from Gill Top; The Daily Mirror (London, UK); Jan 31, 2006.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. -Victor Hugo, novelist and dramatist (26 Feb 1802-1885)

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