“Tawdry” means cheap and showy — like plastic jewelry, for example. But the word has an interesting history. In the 600s (or possibly the 800s; sources disagree), there was a queen in part of England (in those days kingdoms — and ‘queendoms’ — were often about the size of a modern town) named Aethelthrȳth. She… Continue reading

The thing about dictionaries in English is this: they’re descriptive, not prescriptive. Words don’t enter English because you find them in the dictionary; it works in exactly the opposite way. Words enter English, then eventually they (probably) show up in a dictionary.  So how, exactly, do words enter English? Social media! The original social medium… Continue reading

In the early days of automobile design, none of the standards we’re used to had emerged yet, even the most basic ones. Most very early cars didn’t have steering wheels. you steered them with a lever, which was called a “tiller.”  English has two “tiller” words. The first has to do with farming; a tiller… Continue reading