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A Star Wars Word for Wednesday: Lightsaber

May 4th the marked Star Wars Day and to celebrate we chose Star Wars as this month’s Word for Wednesday theme. The date of this commemorative celebration comes from the pun on the Star Wars catchphrase ‘May the Force be with you’. Though the first recorded use of ‘May the 4th be with you’ dates to 1979, the first organised commemorative event for Star Wars Day wasn’t until 2011 when an event was hosted at the Toronto Underground Cinema. Today, Star Wars Day is observed by fans all over the world.  Over the last few weeks, we’ve looked at the words force, Jedi, and droid. Our final Star-Wars-them...

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Word for Wednesday: Sharpener

Our Word for Wednesday theme for September is stationery.  Stationery comes from the Latin ‘stationarius’ which means ‘tradesman who sells from a station or shop’. The word was first used to describe ‘the articles sold by a stationer’ in 1727. So far we have looked at the words pencil, pen, and ruler, and today's stationery-themed word is sharpener. The word sharpener refers to any implement that is used to make something sharper. While the term sharpener dates to the 1630s, the term pencil sharpener is from 1854.  Both words come from word ‘sharpen’ which dates to the 1520s...

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