A question that often comes up when discussing unusual words is whether a word is a “real” word. There isn’t a pat answer in English, since there’s nobody in charge to decide which words are and aren’t real. One big hurdle is “being in the dictionary,” but that’s a pretty gray area too. There are Continue reading

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It seems pretty common, nowadays, to believe that people in the Middle Ages thought the world was flat Modern depictions of Christopher Columbus often touch on the idea, either by implication or by arguing loudly, as in Hare We Go, the 1951 Bugs Bunny cartoon in which Bugs sails with Columbus, who had argued with Continue reading

If you “glom” something, or “glom onto” it, you’re taking it or occupying it. Although it sounds like a slang term, you can find it published in newspapers, magazines, and even Science Daily: “The nanoparticles ‘glom onto the flies,’ Rand noted while watching a video of flies in the test tubes.” Not only is “glom” Continue reading

If you know somebody who’s always talked about visiting, say, Alaska or Paris but never actually makes plans to go there, or somebody who tends to accumulate too much stuff in their house and is always right on the cusp of getting the clutter organized, you know somebody engages in “velleity.”  “Velleity” is more obscure Continue reading

When it’s fifteen degrees Fahrenheit below zero, anybody venturing out would be wise to wear a hat. If they can’t find a hat — or if hats are not a fashion statement they’re comfortable with — a wig might be an alternative. After all, in many ways a wig is very much like a hat.  Continue reading

Before emoji existed — in fact before the Unicode standard that makes emojis possible existed — in fact before computers existed — if you needed to include an ornament or symbol in something printed, you might use a “dingbat”. ✰, ✔︎, and ☞ are dingbats. Things like these: ❀ ✾ are generally called dingbats too, Continue reading

The 19th century produced a great many new English words from popular speech or slang. You might be able to get a handle on general attitudes in the US population around 1850 by studying the words that arose because, evidently, people needed them. There was certainly a healthy disrespect for pompous, overly wordy talk, not Continue reading

You’ve got your kidnapping and dognapping that have to do with capturing either people or dogs. But then you come to catnapping and it means sleeping — except that in 1983 the London Daily Telegraph used it more like kidnapping: “Mr Smith..suggested that Tilley may have been ‘cat-napped’.”  Power napping is definitely sleep. But some Continue reading