The Fubbles Fun-Finiti Bubble Machine is the best bubble machine for kids that you can buy right now. After testing nearly a dozen popular bubble machines with two kids, ages 4 and 9, the Fun-Finiti is the one they consistently requested to play with time and time again. The machine has three twirling jets on top that send hundreds of bubbles into the air per minute, creating a truly magical experience that kids of any age will enjoy. All Hallows’ Eve, the Eve of All Saints, is thought to be the Christianised successor of a festival that marked the last night of the year in the old Celtic calendar. Celebrants of Samhain believed that this was the time when the barriers between the physical and spiritual world broke down. Today’s Hallowe’en is little different: it’s a time when folklore and superstition come together to provide both menace and thrills, as well as painted cheeks puffed with chocolate. While the design bodes well mostly, it does hinder your ability to neatly pour in the solution. The bubble reservoir is very small (less than 4 ounces). Due to the tiny design of the machine, there’s just not enough space to easily pour in bubble solution without spilling. A large medicine dropper or small baster might work better than pouring directly from the solution bottle. You may also be “mayed” (possessing power), “ept”, “flappable”, “peccable”, “bridled”, and “descript”. (But never “promptu”, “petuous”, “shevelled”, “chalant”, or a “nomer”.) The category is so full that today’s survivors have been given their own linguistic moniker: “orphaned negatives”.

the mubble fubbles: Celebrity wordsmith Susie Dent on Year of the mubble fubbles: Celebrity wordsmith Susie Dent on

Our kids have been through so much recently,” Dent says of the book. “Their normality has been taken away. And I just thought, ‘Let’s celebrate the beautiful’.” Not just obviously appealing words such as “butterfly” and “lovewende” (meaning beloved) – but those that delight in everyday annoyances, such as “thunderplump: the sudden downpour of fat, heavy raindrops that leaves us drenched and dripping in minutes”. She was excited to find research, by the psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett, that showed having the vocabulary to articulate happy feelings can make us better able to manage our emotions. And if we are feeling down, knowing that there is a fun word for that – the “mubble fubbles” – may at least make us feel less alone. Dent is drawn to words that delight in everyday annoyances, such as ‘thunderplump: the sudden downpour of fat, heavy raindrops Equally, Susie laughed off headlines claiming millennials now regarded use of the humble full stop as an act of passive aggression. “Again, some people think this is terrible – ‘what’s going to happen to our punctuation?’ – but this applied to online speech where young people are leaving full stops out. For the superstitious Romans, a practitioner of such magic was known as a “fascinator”, one capable of causing, according to later historians, “impairment of function, especially the sexual function ... headache, hiccoughs and yawnings”. Word Perfect is the result of a lifetime of such jottings. The book explores a word or phrase linked to every day of the year. It is essentially an anthology of words and phrases remembered through a moment in time. Some of these moments were decisive – the Battle of Copenhagen that had Nelson “turn a blind eye”; the Declaration of Independence that sealed not only autonomy of government but a separation of language too, meaning we will forever “blame” those Americans for words like “fall” and “sidewalk”, when they had been “ours” long before.

On returning to his native Sunderland, Crawford was hailed a hero, and became the darling of the people, celebrated in engravings and pamphlets across the country, culminating in an accolade from the king. His actions ensured that the British Navy had the enduring reputation of being resilient and formidable. Encouragingly, she believes texting, social media and emojis do not spell doom for grammar geeks and word lovers but will instead enrich our use of language. Sometimes also whips and jangles, this term first popped up in the mid-1940s meaning nervousness and depression. By the ‘50s, it would also mean “withdrawal from alcohol or narcotics,” according to Green’s. 11. Wiffle-Woffles If you are looking for the best bubble machine for a party, you’ve got to go with the Zerhunt Automatic Bubble Blower. It runs on batteries (not included) or you can plug it in using the included power cable, making it perfect for all-day birthday parties or an afternoon playdate. It also has a very large 12.5-ounce reservoir for bubble solution, which is above-average capacity for most tabletop bubble machines, also making it an ideal choice for a party or school event. There's also a sturdy handle around the middle that makes this lightweight bubble blower very portable.

Fubbles Bubble Unicorn Bubble Blaster - Best for Ages 3 to 10 Fubbles Bubble Unicorn Bubble Blaster - Best for Ages 3 to 10

Apparently, Dent has always been this way about words. She was the sort of child who can’t sit at a table without reading the label on the ketchup bottle; then studying German and French at A-level really got her “in the groove”. She did modern languages at Oxford University and then German at Princeton – and if you think she’s blissed out by English etymology, you should see her face when she talks about German. “When I listen to it and speak it, I honestly feel like I’m coming home,” she says, lighting up. She thinks it might have been Goethe who compared English to a country garden, French to an ornamental park and German to a deep, dark forest. “And that’s how it feels to me. It’s thorny and it’s dense and it’s quite dark sometimes, but I just find such joy within it.”For Dent, words matter. “Not because of 18th-century Latin rules about split infinitives and prepositions, but because words are joyful, and we have such a vast lexicon there for the taking.” So, what three joyous words would she use to describe herself?