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Unusual Word Origins
You may be surprised to learn how many of the words we use have unusual origins. Having spent centuries in our lexicons, these words have lost their original significations and now take on colloquial...
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The Etymology of Cowboy
Last night I had the pleasure of hearing Ronny Cox, the actor who played Drew Ballinger in Deliverance and Richard “Dick” Jones in RoboCop, perform his country western music at a small venue. While...
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Days of the Week Word Origins
The English names for the days of the week have their roots in astrology and ancient cultures. The practice of naming days after heavenly bodies began – at least for the Western world – with the...
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Peace
By now everyone has heard the announcement that the United States’ president Barack Obama is the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. The announcement, which was made at 5 am Eastern Standard...
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Naming House and Home: Word Origins
It’s raining heavily again in Atlanta, and the soothing sound of heavy drops hitting against the roof and windows brings to mind the language of house and home. Both the words “house” and “home” found...
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The Cream Christ Connection
There are few things that I love more than finding out that two seemingly very different words share the same root. Like the shared history of pomegranate and hand grenade, these connections between...
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Pays d'Oc, Pays d'Oïl, Pays de Sì: A History of Romance Languages Through the...
Although not his most famous work, one of Dante Alighieri’s most important ones was a composition entitled De Vulgari Eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular or Concerning Vernacular Eloquence), in...
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Holidays Bring Out Spirits and Conspiracies
The last week of October and the beginning of November brings together some fairly disparate events, holidays, and emotions. For one, especially here in the U.S., October 31 is Halloween, that strange...
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The Etymology of Philosopher
Simon Critchley wrote an interesting commentary for the New York Times on Sunday, May 16, 2010, titled What is a Philosopher? He opens the article by stating the obvious—“There are as many definitions...
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Etymology of Common Legal Terms
Legalese – the bone-dry and tortuous language of the law – can be as mystifying as it is ubiquitous. To help our readers parse some of the more common and curious legal terms, below are their Latin...
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The Etymologies of February and Lent
February is all about preparing for the coming spring. From Groundhog Day to Lent, the focus of this short month is readying ourselves for the glory of springtime (or at least reminding ourselves that...
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Useful Words We’ve Forgotten from Math Class
Mathematics has a language all its own – a rich tapestry of systems interconnected with ironclad logic. Linguistics, philosophy, and mathematics have shared insights for centuries – Sir Isaac Newton,...
View ArticleLow-Hanging Buzzwords: The Etymology of 3 Corporate Favorites
Is your company pushing the envelope to create disruptive innovations outside the box? Have you considered how scalable your department’s synergy really is? Can your sales reps proactively leverage...
View ArticleRevisiting William Safire’s ‘On Language’
.blockquote1{ padding: 0 5% 0 5%; font-style: italic; } Recently a friend brought to my attention a delightful collection of William Safire’s articles from the New York Times Magazine. Many years ago,...
View ArticleEtymology of the Cosmos
The cosmos that surrounds our planet is a vast playground of knowledge – for astronomers, for physicists, for theologians, and even for experienced linguists. Below you will find the word origins of...
View ArticleWhat do the Roma speak?
The Roma are a traditionally nomadic ethnicity with communities all the way across Europe and beyond. Often misunderstood and mistreated – a topic I won’t go into – they are typically thought to be...
View Article3 Most Common Suffixes in Medical Terminology
The world of medicine offers language lovers an uncanny look into our prevalent and inescapable Latin and Greek origins. While we hear and read the language of medicine on a daily basis, most of us...
View ArticleThe Meaning and Roots of U.S. State Names
Our country has an incredibly rich linguistic and cultural history, a fact that becomes readily apparent by examining place names across the nation. Drawing from Latin, Spanish, French, and a host of...
View ArticleTen Interesting Animal Etymologies
The animal kingdom brings us a wealth of fascinating, unusual, and enlightening etymologies from around the world. In this article, we explore ten of them. Camel This beast of burden traces its...
View ArticleDancing over dueling: How English metaphors make arguments a matter of war
In our last post on metaphors, we discovered that much of our daily language contains metaphors we’re unaware of – like spending time or falling into a coma. In this post, we are going to explore war...
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