The TV was on, but I wasn’t really paying much attention, when I heard the newsreader say something about Britain “meddling”.
Here we go again, I thought, poking our noses into some other country’s business. Who have we upset this time, probably Syria or Iran, although these days it could be almost any nation in the world.
Then I heard the word “podiuming” and realized that I was listening to some form of ‘Olympic-Speak’ where the nouns ‘medal’ and ‘podium’ had been turned into verbs, and that a competitor in the ‘Games’ was not just being presented with a medal as he was standing on the podium. He was .. “MEDALLING” .. whilst .. “PODIUMING” !
I’m not sure if this latest ‘verbing’ can be blamed on our American cousins who love to ‘party’, as I have just read that Lord Byron wrote in a letter of 1822 … “He was medalled” and that Thackeray used it in 1860 in his Roundabout Papers .. “Irving went home medalled by the King”, but then I don’t suppose that cringe making commentators like babbling Matt and gormless Gary will have picked it up from 19th century literature, so it probably started with some bloke in a pub, after he had spent the day watching sports TV while he was …
… ‘PINTING’ !
bigjohn 
