“Agony” is, today, severe discomfort or acute pain. But it wasn’t always that way. Agony comes from Ancient Greek — an “agon” was just a contest. They had loads of contests. There were hundreds of “gymnasiums” where athletes and others would train and practice various skills, and there were constant competitions in everything from wrestling Continue reading

When an event is rapid, it happens “quickly.” When it’s highly audible, it’s “noisy.” It can occur “publicly” or “privately.” If it’s an action taken by a person, it can be done “firmly,” “tentatively,” “happily,” “sadly,” and so forth. But what if the event determines something for sure — the price of your last tank Continue reading

When you’re feeling hopeful or optimistic about something you might say you’re feeling “sanguine” about it. If you’re like most people, you probably wouldn’t, but the point is that you could. “Sanguine” is a reasonably common word, although it doesn’t generally pop up in everyday conversation in most circles. But it has a pretty unusual Continue reading

There’s an amusing cycle in English; sometimes a two-word phrase (for example, ice cream) for some reason acquires a hyphen for a while (ice-cream). Then the hyphen seems too fussy and troublesome, so it’s dropped completely and becomes a single compound word (icecream). After another while, the words separate again and the original two-word phrase Continue reading

It’s not unusual to see the words “tract” and “track” confused; people use “track” where they mean “tract”, and (less often) talk about “tracts” that are really “tracks”.  Maybe they shouldn’t be blamed too much, though, because the history of “track” and “tract” is pretty tangled and involves some weird coincidences. Both words appeared in Continue reading

In 1884 the “Pall Mall Gazette” opined that “The Congo treaty may now be regarded as being as dead as a doornail.” We still say “dead as a doornail” today, a century and a half later. But wait, “Piers Plowman” includes this bit: “Fey withouten fait is febelore þen nouȝt, And ded as a dore-nayl.” That’s Continue reading

English borrows words from every language it touches. There are tens of thousands of words borrowed from European languages, but that’s just because of all the contact with them. Now that people can move around the world just a little more easily than months-long voyages or treks, English is continuing its borrowing ways, adopting additional Continue reading

Have you ever gone outside on a clear, calm night, and enjoyed looking up at the stars as they…skinkled? Or, as in an 1888 newspaper story, maybe you’ve watched “A handful of flame which..merely skinkles on the window-panes.” It’s true; in addition to twinkling, sparkling, gleaming, shimmering, flickering, glittering, winking, gleaming, scintillating, and corsuscating, objects that produce Continue reading

There are any number of diseases one can catch, but have you ever noticed that two of them — mumps and measles — are plural? There’s not really any singular version; a mild case of mumps isn’t a “mump,” and there doesn’t seem to be any recorded case of anyone catching a “measle.”  There are Continue reading

Most of the time abbreviations are pretty intuitive, or are supposed to be. The abbreviation for a US state, for example, is designed to be recognizable, so for Massachusetts we get “MA,” and for Texas it’s “TX.” The abbreviation for US dollars is the straightforward “USD.” “In” stands for “inch” and “tsp” means “teaspoon.” It’s Continue reading