In 1699 Abel Boyer published a dictionary with the unusual characteristic of a three-sentence title: The royal dictionary. In two parts. First, French and English. Secondly, English and French. In that dictionary you can find this entry: “Pill-garlick: a pitiful sneaking Fellow out of Countenance.” It wasn’t long before “pill-garlick” became the word “pilgarlic.” It… Continue reading

Nowadays being “enthusiastic” is generally considered a good thing. It means you’re intensely interested in something (like a hobby), you enjoy it very much (like a piece of music), or you highly approve of it (like your favorite sports team). This hasn’t always been the case, though. “Enthusiasm” came from the Greek word “enthousiasmos,” which… Continue reading

“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.” (Groucho Marx) “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” (Benjamin Franklin) Those are examples of “antanaclasis,” which is repeating a word (or a phrase), and using it in a different sense the second time. The word comes from Latin,… Continue reading

Horatio Nelson, the famous British admiral, served in the Mediterranean Sea in the late 1700s, before the French Revolution. From 1799 to 1801 his flagship was the HMS Foudroyant. British warships are often named for admirable qualities, like the HMS Resolute or HMS Victory, and the Foudroyant was no different, even though few people would… Continue reading

When a craftsperson, artist, musician, or writer manages to fit a set of components together to make a congruous, harmonious whole, there used to be a word for it. Well, of course, there still are words for it — after all, I just used “congruous” and “harmonious.” And “consistency” and “elegance” could be added as… Continue reading

It’s common to almost everyone that they think of a cause for what they see, coming up with an explanation that seems reasonable, at least given what they know at the time. Before things like germs, viruses, and some of the actual processes operating in your body were discovered, people dreamed up any number of… Continue reading

It goes without saying that Santa rides around in a “sleigh.” That is, it goes without saying but it doesn’t go without music and pictures — the sleigh is a crucial part of any good Santa tableau. But “sleigh,” it turns out, is a word that only arose in the 1700s. Specifically, the 1721 December… Continue reading

“Gift” is an old word; older than English. It comes from Old English, and even before that seems to have been part of ancient Germanic languages. After all, even thousands of years ago people got married. And in those days a “gift” was the payment a man made when purchasing a wife. It’s not certain… Continue reading

This is the time of year we find ourselves in the “yule” or “yuletide” season. It’s twelve days long — except when it’s about two months long — which it isn’t when it lasts just three days. But we’re only “probably” in it because it hasn’t always taken place at this time of year, or… Continue reading

Some people think that a text — a book of fiction, for example, or the script for a play — is one complete thing, and that each constituent part, whether it’s a passage or just a single word, must be left as-is or the message and nature of the whole is changed. Others think of… Continue reading