Tag: etymology
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Hidden Tiny Tales of Tragedy
Read more: Hidden Tiny Tales of TragedySome words are utilitarian. Some carry the history of an entire culture.
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It’s a Cinch
Read more: It’s a CinchOh, English. It’s like you’re trying to trip us up with similar words that mean slightly different things.
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Olly Olly Oxen Free
Read more: Olly Olly Oxen FreeThe first time I heard the word bucolic, I thought it was a synonym for colic. But its origin is so much stranger than that.
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I’m OK, you’re OK
Read more: I’m OK, you’re OKOK is a very strange word with an even stranger history. How did it become such a giant in world trading vocabulary?
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English, across the zees
Read more: English, across the zeesOh, that hurt. I have Americanized my website, swapping esses for zees, swapping licence for license and removing that all-important letter u from color.
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English’s tiny, moving parts
Read more: English’s tiny, moving partsYou would think English would throw up a shorter word than smidgen to mean something small or insignificant.
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Dirty words lost in translation
Read more: Dirty words lost in translationThere is so much regional variation in our language it is a wonder we understand each other at all. Though what interests me most is when words diverge into two paths, often close enough to be confused, and why so many of these words are so very naughty.
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