Word of the day: easy It’s always been easy in English to invent new euphemisms for “easy.” The practice goes way back, and finding even obsolete phrases is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Shakespeare, in “Troilus and Cressida,” (1609), referred to “bedwork,” which meant something so easy it could be done while Continue reading

From 1687: “With what a rueful Phis and maine.” From 1714: “Fizle’s Phiz always gives me the Chollick.” From 1827: “And deem themselves of admirable fiz.”From 1903: “…the drollest phiz in dogdom.” From 1997: “…replaced with the phiz of his supposedly brain-dead nemesis.” What we have here is a word (“phiz”) that was in pretty Continue reading

In American English “scrumptious” means something delicious. It comes from regional dialects in England in the early 1800s, and originally it meant something quite different. Edward Moor’s  1823 “Suffolk Words and Phrases” includes this definition: “shrewing, stingy, in an avaricious sense.”  When “scrumptious” crossed the Atlantic, it took on a new meaning, but still nothing Continue reading

Most everybody is familiar with “hemming and hawing”, which means hesitating, dissembling, foot-shuffling indecision. If there’s something unpleasant that needs to be done, or a big mistake to be explained, you might encounter some hemming and hawing first.  People have been hemming and hawing for a long time. Gervase Babington referred to it in 1588 Continue reading

One handy way to coin a new word in English — if the new word is meant to be a negative version of another word that already exists — is to add “dis-“ as a prefix. That’s how English got words like “dishonest,” “disconnect,” and “discontent.” But this is a relatively new practice in the Continue reading

Thomas Watson, in 1847, published a book with at least one important lesson. The book was titled “Lectures on the Principles and Practice of Physic” — note that it doesn’t say “physics;” in 1847 “physic” meant what we’d call the practice of medicine. Watson’s lesson was quite simple: “Shut a healthy pig up in a Continue reading

“Baseball” has a long history in the US, and like most things with a long history, there are plenty of myths, legends, and commonly held beliefs. For instance, you can find references to baseball being invented in 1839 by Abner Doubleday. You can also learn that baseball was invented in 1845 by Alexander Cartwright. With Continue reading

Carl Linnaeus was a Swedish scientist in the 1700s who invented the modern system of classifying and naming organisms. It’s thanks to him that we can not only call a hedgehog a hedgehog, but also identify it as a mammal in the family “erinaceinae.” And likewise with virtually every plant and animal on earth. Linnaeus Continue reading

François Rabelias was a Renaissance man in fifteenth-century France. That is, not only did he actually live during the French Renaissance, but he also pursued the multiple careers expected of somebody we would today label a “Renaissance man.” He was a writer, a doctor, a monk, and, although they didn’t really have the label at Continue reading

The ancient Romans were pretty good at some things, like roads, aqueducts, and long-lasting political systems, but their calendar (or calendars) were nothing we’d want to emulate. They divided the year into months, like we do, but  possibly because of that unwieldy numbering system they had (out of all the systems that have been developed, Continue reading