Merriam-Webster has been defining words since 1828 and is, in the main, a dictionary of American-English. Although aimed squarely at our Colonial Cousins it contains a range of words rarely heard outside Britain. I’m pleased to report that whinge, although rarely heard outside Britain is featured:
Definition – to complain fretfully: whine
Intransitive verb – British
Whinge and whine may look like simple variants, but the two words are fairly distinct, with meanings and histories that are independent. Whinge comes from an Old English word, hwinsian, meaning “to wail or moan discontentedly,” whereas whine comes from the Old English hwinan (“to make a humming or whirring sound”). Whinge, in use since the 12th century, has always had a meaning related to complaining; whine, on the other hand, did not begin to have its now-familiar meaning until the 16th century.
O it is a sweet thing ay to be whinging, and crying, and seeking about Christ’s Pantry Doors, and to hold ay an Eye upon Christ when he goes into the House of Wine, into His Fathers fair Luckie Wine-Celler where there are many Wines, and bout in at Christ’s back. — Samuel Rutherford, Christs Napkin, 1660
Mount Pleasant PO is on the site of Coldbath Fields Prison which forbade inmates from speaking and made them spend hours on the treadmill
The pillars in the basement of St. Pancras Station are spaced exactly 3 beer barrels apart designed as Bass beer arrives from Midlands
The playwright Ben Jonson was buried standing up in Westminster Abbey – at his own request, saying he was too poor to take up more space
Conservative MP Sir Henry Bellingham is a direct descendant of John Bellingham the assassin of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in 1812
Leicester Square was where Maurice Micklewhite saw poster for The Caine Mutiny and chose Michael Caine as new name
Westfield Stratford, the largest shopping centre in Europe, cost the equivalent of the GDP of the 25 world’s poorest countries to build
Harold Thornton invented table football in 1922 attempting to recreate Spurs with a box of matches, he played it at Bar Kick, Shoreditch High Street
The tunnel between East Finchley and Morden (via Bank) is the longest on the Underground measuring 27.8km (17.25 miles)
The Company of Watermen and Lightermen are not a full Livery Company – excluded because they charged people fleeing the Great Fire in 1666
Rosewood Hotel’s Manor House Suite is the only hotel suite in the world with its own postcode: WC1V 7DZ for the rest of the hotel: WC1V 7EN
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