Did you know that the name of the TV show Big Brother was taken from George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four? In the novel, Big Brother is the all-seeing and all-powerful leader who notionally controls the whole of the totalitarian society of Oceania, although it is not made clear whether he actually exists or not.
To mark the book’s 70-year anniversary, we’ve gathered some other words and phrases taken from or related to works of fiction, all of which are taken from Macmillan Dictionary’s Word Story feature. How many do you think you know? Find out by taking our new quiz!
For more of our quizzes on a broad range of topics, visit the language quizzes page on Macmillan Dictionary!
You can read more about Orwell and the English language in this post by our regular contributor Stan Carey.Email this Post