Interesting Words
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Tin Pan Alley
When you hear the phrase “tin pan alley,” if you think of anything at all, you probably think of the US music business. The term began to be used around the turn of the 20th Century, and at the time referred to a specific location: 28th Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue. That was where… Continue reading
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Honk!
Sometimes you hear a performance called the performer’s “swan song.” It’s supposed to mean that it’s a last performance. The final speech of an ousted politician is sometimes called the same thing. But what do swans have to do with it, and why a song? Swans don’t sing — different kinds of swans make different… Continue reading
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Not Exactly Eli
If you visit Yale University, you might view the portico of Davenport College, or even catch a glimpse of the official banner of the university’s president. If you do, you’ll see a yale. Not, mind you, a Yale — that would be a direct descendant of Elihu Yale, who was a governor of the British… Continue reading
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Tawdry
Around the year 750, the Venerable Bede wrote about a woman named Ethelreda. She had been the daughter of King Anna, who in spite of his name, was a king, not a queen. He was the king of East Anglia, which was pretty small as kingdoms go — it was only the size of what’s… Continue reading
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Coyly, now
Pay attention, if you can, without batting an eye. That is, don’t play baseball with your eyelids. No, wait, that’s not right. Don’t flap your eyelids like bat wings…er…but that’s not how bats fly, as far as I know. What I mean is…well never mind that; let’s figure out what’s going on with “batting eyes.”… Continue reading
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Clanging and tooting
If you have a “kitchen with all the bells and whistles,” you have all the accessories and appliances that most people can think of — but even without them, it’s still a kitchen. “Bells and whistles” can be found in practically any field. Here’s an unusual application from 2010: “One would think that most chief… Continue reading
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Who knows
There’s something out of kilter about the way we use the word “kilter.” The word’s first appearance in print was around 1600, and for about a century before that it was “kelter.” Both kilter and its immediate predecessor “kelter” mean “in good order or good condition.” But various dialects of English have had different meanings… Continue reading
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Lexiphanic
“A sophistiocal rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and glorify himself.” That’s what Benjamin Disraieli said about William Gladstone in 1878. Decades before Disraeli and Gladstone rose to prominence… Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.