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When talking about the “stealing thunder” of her book’s title, Susie said: “That’s my all-time favourite.”

She explained: “It's so rare for a lexicographer to find the exact moment that a word or phrase was born. And this is an exception. So it was February 5th, 1709. It was this playwright critic called John Dennis. He'd written a really boring play, but he had one thing in his production that was amazing, which is he’d perfected this machine that made the sound of thunder. But still, his play closed. He went along to the next performance, which was of the Scottish Play, and was enjoying it by all accounts and then heard, booming out from the stage, the sound of his own thunder-making machine, and he stood up and he shouted ‘Damn them, they will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder’.”

Posted By: Tombs, Dec 8, 11:43:18