You can delete, you can erase, you can remove, but to really, really get rid of something, you “expunge” it. “Expunge” connotes complete and total obliteration. But oddly enough, it began as possibly the mildest version of erasure there was.  “Expunge” comes from the Latin “expungere,” which had a very specific meaning. When a Roman Continue reading

Some English words exist only as what sound like negative forms, like “incognito.” You never hear about anyone going around “cognito,” after all. But there are also some that were originally positive words, then gained a negative form, then the positive form faded out of use leaving us with only…for example…”ineffable.”  Something that’s “ineffable” can’t Continue reading

Even though a fairly large proportion of English is derived from French (thanks mostly to the Norman invasion over a thousand years ago), one pretty reliable way to boost the snob-value of something in English is to give it a name that, if it isn’t legitimately French, at least sounds French. If you know someone Continue reading

In Hampshire, England, there’s a park called the New Forest that’s not very new at all. It goes back to William the Conqueror (who was in charge 1066-1087), and was a “royal forest.” In the Domesday Book in 1086, it was called “Nova Foresta.” It was used for royal hunts — of deer, for example Continue reading

From Piglet to Wilbur to Babe to Animal Farm, pigs play a certain minor (or possibly mid-range) role as characters in English writing. Pigs have been domesticated for many centuries, and they’ve entered the language as well.  The thing is, most pig-related words and idioms don’t seem particularly kind to the pigs. The word “hogwash,” Continue reading

When you’re musing, daydreaming, or generally relaxing in an aimless sort of way, you might say that you’re “whiling away the time”. But you might instead say — and back in the day you might have been more likely to say — you’re “WILING away the time.” “While” began to be used as a verb Continue reading

About 35 years ago there was a professor of linguistics at Drew University: Roger Wescott, who happened upon the slang word “oogly” (or at least said he did; not a whole lot of other people seem to have heard of it). “Oogly,” Wescott explained, was a form of “ugly,” and it was used to mean Continue reading

Word of the day: sophisticated “Sophisticated” means refined, cultured, and even complicated. A “sophisticate” is a person who embodies those qualities. But all this is only recently, in etymological terms. “Sophisticate” meaning a person dates only from the 1920s, and even “sophisticated” was used in our modern sense — and applied to people — starting Continue reading

A valedictorian is the person who achieves the highest grade point average in a cohort of students — most often a high school class. Particularly around graduation time, you’re apt to hear the word “valedictorian” here and there. But you probably won’t hear about any “valetudinarians.”  A valetudinarian is someone who’s very concerned with their Continue reading

Back in the 1400s the word “paradigm” entered English. It’s from the Greek word “paradeiknynal,” which means “to show side by side,” and in English it meant a pattern or example. It was never a particularly popular word, and by the 1600s it had been relegated to the realm of grammar; it was used to Continue reading