Words Ahoy, Langlubbers! 
Hotch Potch, that’s whatch potch, and never a better moment for it!
Admittedly, it’s been a while brewing. I bought this website name almost as soon as you could buy website names, back in the mid-1990s. Does anyone remember those?
God, that makes me sound really old, like my grandmother when she told me she was born in 1899; now that’s old. Anything that doesn’t start with a ‘2’ is by definition really old these days. And I’ve never used it! Humble little hotchpotch.com I mean.
Now, nearly 30 years later, I’ve finally found something for it to do: help me celebrate this infuriatingly exceptional language of ours we call… English.
If you appreciate the quirky wonders of this weird tongue we speak… Hotch Potch is for you.
Anything that amazes, intrigues or amuses me will appear here, no matter where I find it. I will occasionally include my own stuff too, if I think it merits it and you can stand it.
Discussion of each Hotch (or Potch) will take place in the Facebook Group HERE, where there is currently one lonely member (guess who).
Please join and get involved – you can comment on the latest Hotch Potch article and of course contribute your own favourite linguistic legends. I can’t wait to read you!
And now, the question you’ve all been waiting to hear answered:
Why The Hotch?
Or maybe
Forwhy, pray, did you dub your curious little corner thus?
And it’s easy: isn’t hotch potch just the cutest term? Officially it’s one word, hotchpotch, and means approximately one or two things depending on dictionaries and dialects:
Oxford Dictionary says: a confused mixture
Cambridge Dictionary expands: a confused mixture of different things
Collins Dictionary prefers the wordier: an untidy mixture of different types of things
You get the idea. Additionally…
Collins tells us that a hyphenated hotch-potch is also possible (is that an oxymoron?);
Cambridge informs us that in Americanish it’s usually hodgepodge 
(What can you do? 
);
Only Oxford offers a second meaning on their first page: a mutton stew with mixed vegetables
The term hotpot bubbles to mind, which may not be a coincidence.
So, there you go, you see? This will be a hysterical hotchpotch, a maddening mixture, a joyful jumble, a marvellous mishmash, a freakin’ farrago if you will, yes, a mighty mess of everything and anything that makes me go: That’s cool! and That’s going in the pot!
Watch this space!
=> <=
No, don’t, that would be silly; read, rather, the next Hotch Potch in the list.
Like the brave British buses of my youth, there’s sure to be another couple coming up right behind – ouch!
Happy Hotching (or Potching)
The Wily Word Weaver 
