In 1653, Sir Thomas Urquhart translated The First Book of the Work of Mr. Francis Rabelais. Urquhart was a Scottish aristocrat who was also a writer, but he is most known for his translations of Rabelais. That, and the way he died, of course. When he heard that Charles II had become the king, Urquhart… Continue reading

It’s not uncommon for two sounds in a word to trade places when someone speaks them, saying “aks” for “ask” or “revelant” for “relevant.” It’s common enough that there’s a word for it: metathesis.  Metathesis doesn’t just occur on an individual basis, though; there are words in which sounds have swapped places in the language… Continue reading

It’s probably a good day to talk about eleemosynary activities we all might engage in, possibly by visiting an almonry or even dealing directly with an almoner. What I’m talking about, of course, is charitable acts and donations. “Eleemosynary” comes from the Latin word “eleemosynarius,” which means compassion. It can be traced even further back… Continue reading

In Austria in 1923, Felix Salten published his novel about the life of a deer: Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde. It took five years, but finally in 1928 the English translation was published: “Bambi, a Life in the Woods.” That’s where it all started.  In 1942 Walt Disney Productions released its fifth animated feature… Continue reading

It’s common enough, particularly in New England, to eat some chowder — especially clam chowder. But why is it clam “chowder” instead of, for example, clam “soup” or clam “stew”? And if you do try some chowder and it isn’t any good, are you likely to chowter about it? “Chowder” is just a variety of… Continue reading

There are lots of people today who proudly (or at least happily) describe themselves as nerds, geeks, or both. It’s quite a turnaround, because both words used to have somewhat negative connotations. They’ve also tended to converge in meaning, so that it’s not really clear what the difference is, if any (and if you’re about… Continue reading

I found this information in an abditory. If this were written in Latin, that would be abditorium, which is the source of “abditory.” The word has been around since at least 1658, when it was used by somebody known only as J Robinson in a publication called Endoxa:  “In the center of the kernel of… Continue reading

The phrase “it’s a doozy” is an American expression that means something is remarkable and usually excellent. If “His elder daughter arrives in a doozie of a snowstorm,” you know that snowstorm was particularly intense.  Popular culture contains a story about the word “doozy.” It’s said to be based on the Duesenberg automobiles of the 1920s. They… Continue reading

We pretty much take dictionaries for granted these days. But it hasn’t always been that way, and the process of creating dictionaries and dictionary entries is interesting enough that it’s been the subject of several books. The book that may have started the whole thing is The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester; it’s… Continue reading

Calling someone a “popinjay” is slightly archaic, but still in use; the guy who was White House Communications Director for about a week a few years back, Anthony Scaramucci, was called a “popinjay” by several commentators. It appears to have been Felix Salmon’s idea, who started it all the way back in 2011, when he… Continue reading