We see a lot of newfangled gadgets, devices, and tools these days. But there’s nothing new at all about “newfangled”.  “Newfangled” is, if you go back far enough, related to “fang,” but not the modern word for a sharp tooth. The ancestor of the “fangled” part of “newfangled” is an Old English word, “feng,” meaning Continue reading

Punctuation, at least in English, is a lot newer than the language itself — even newer than the written form of the language. After all, the model for languages in Europe was Latin, which used hardly any punctuation. One mark that was used in classical Latin was the “capitulum” — the chapter marker. That one Continue reading

Everybody knows what “silly” means: foolishness. To imagine that it means anything else would be just silly. But “silly” is a word with a very long history, and it hasn’t always meant “foolish.” The whole silly thing begins back in the days of Middle English, when it was “seely.” “Seely” had a couple of meanings. Continue reading

The word “complete”, which means something having all of its parts or components, has been around in English since the 1300s. It comes from the Latin word “complere,” which means “full.” Back in the 1500s, “complete” had another meaning as well. When you used it in reference to a person, it meant highly accomplished, or Continue reading

When you start reading this, you’re on the brink of a not-particularly-important discovery. To wit: what the heck is a “brink”, anyway? You can be “on the brink” of something good, like a singer “on the brink of stardom,” or a scientist “on the brink of a major discovery,” but it’s more common to find Continue reading

Chemical elements are named for all sorts of reasons. Americium was named because it was discovered in the United States — there’s also Europium, named because it was discovered in Europe. Gallium is named after France (Gaul). Hassium is named after the German state Hesse, where it was discovered. There are loads of other examples, Continue reading

Calling a magician a “prestidigitator” is not unusual — in fact, depending on the stage persona of the magician in question, “prestidigitator” might even be part of their act. It means “quick fingers,” as in “the hand is quicker than the eye,” and it comes from French, where it was the nearly-identical “prestidigitateur.” In fact, Continue reading

“Gathered around the jussulent cauldron, bubbling over the campfire, the rustling of kexy leaves alerted them to some large presence nearby, and they scattered, each seeking a private latibule.”  What we have here is a collection of lost words; terms that were in common use but then for some reason were just forgotten. There’s nothing Continue reading

If you read Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow”, an accomplishment for which you deserve congratulations (Pynchon novels are not the easiest books to read), you’ll encounter this passage: “‘Here then,’ the kindly scombroid face scanning Eventyr, quick as a fire-control dish antenna and even less mercy.” “Scombroid” sounds like it could be quite the insult; it Continue reading

During the 1600s in England, a great many negative words were coined by adding the prefix “mis-.” That is, if you acknowledged someone or something, but then discovered you’d made a mistake, in those days you’d say you “misacknowledged.” There was also “missadd” in 1657 for summing poorly, misalter in 1641 for making an error Continue reading