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A section for all you budding etymologists where each week the origin of a word or phrase is investigated.
That sympathetic correspondent relieved that this annus horribilis is
This week it is..... Annus horribilis
was Sir Edward William Spencer coming to an end.”
A horrible year.
Derived from the Latin phrase Ford, GCVO, KCB, ERD, DL, a This was generally supposed to
‘annus mirabilis’ - year of wonders former Assistant Private Secretary have been a reference to questions
(or miracles). Recorded since the to the Queen and previously to her concerning his and his son’s alleged
mid 1980’s but brought into popular father King George VI. He may well involvement in the UN’s Oil for
use after Queen Elizabeth II used it have been harking back to the 1666 Food Programme. Of course, Annan
to describe 1992 - the year that the ‘annus mirabilis’, rather than picking couldn’t have known that the worst
marriages of her two sons Charles it up from the Guardian report or disaster of the year was yet to
and Andrew broke down and other uses of the phrase between come when, on December 26th, the
1985 and 1992. The link between the Indian Ocean tsunami killed almost
Windsor Castle caught fire.
John Dryden used the term ‘annus Great Fire of London and the fire at a quarter of a million people.
mirabilis’ in the title of his epic poem Windsor Castle, which had taken
Annus Mirabilis: the year of wonders place just a few days earlier, is quite
1666. The poem was published in easy to make. Whatever route the Is there an English phrase or
1667 and commemorates the English phrase took, it has now been added saying that you would like to
defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and to the list of Latin phrases that have know more about?
Email it to us on submissions@
the Great Fire of London. Dryden been adopted into English.
awolonline.net
Kofi Annan, then Secretary-General
apparently considered the fact that
of the UN, used the phrase in a
much of London was spared from
the fire and Charles II’s plans for a speech on 21st December 2004:
speedy restoration of the burned “There’s no doubt that this has been
districts as a sign that God had a particularly difficult year, and I am
performed miracles for England.
He seems not to have been swayed
in his ‘year of wonders’ opinion by
the continuing Great Plague, which
killed 20% of London’s population
(and which he was well aware of
and left London to avoid). Looking
back, The Great Fire of London and
bubonic plague in the same year
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seems more horribilis than mirabilis,
• Imported and Local Beers
• Lamb Chops and Steaks from the Grill
but Dryden had the advantage of
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living through it, so he should know.
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The earliest citation of ‘annus
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horribilis’ in print is from a report in
The Guardian, March 1985:
Most Major Credit
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mirabilis, annus horribilis of 1968...”
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The phrase came to a wide audience
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message in 1992, where she said:
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“1992 is not a year I shall look back
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on with undiluted pleasure. In the
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words of one of my more sympathetic
Large range of Desserts including
correspondents, it has turned out to
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be an ‘annus horribilis’”.
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