Why do we say…

“One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” goes the old proverb. The meaning is simple: if you are going to be punished for a small crime, you may as well commit the bigger one. In the early

Stuck on what to say? Try these words that have recently been added to the dictionary

Dodie Smith was a Lancashire lass, born in 1896, and is mainly known for her two most famous novels – I Capture the Castle, and, of course, The Hundred and One Dalmatians. But there was a lot more to

Unfairly maligned as a sneaky troublemaker, the quicksilver ferret is a characterful, curious and highly intelligent creature–with fascinating regal and cultural trappings to boot, writes Octavia Pollock

In a John Behan bronze, collector Jacqueline O’Donovan, a child of the Irish diaspora, can sense the desperation of a starving people forced to flee their land

Smothering, transformative and beautiful, fog’s close-set shroud has inspired titans of literature, cinema and art–and forces the rest of us to look at the world a little closer, writes John Lewis-Stempel