In 1624, William Bedell published a book with the riveting title Copies Certaine Letters. In it he posed a question, which has echoed down the centuries ever since: “Who were these quidams that laid hands on Scory?” A couple of hundred years later, in 1832, the London Times pointed out that “If the doctrine of our English quidams be… Continue reading

In 1593 Gabriel Harvey wrote a piece called Pierce’s Supererogation, or a New Praise of the Old Ass. It was basically an extended insult of a fellow named Thomas Nashe, and in part he refers to him as “…a dodkin author, whose two swords are like the horns of a hodmandod…”. In this he was… Continue reading

If you’re fond of both language and math, you surely already know that in the phrase “5 minus 3” the number 5 is the minuend and the number 3 is the subtrahend. Since that’s not news, it’s a good thing that 5 less 3 is not really the subject of this bit of trivia. No,… Continue reading

Family is a word that’s often invoked in service of things like tradition and stability. At least in recent years. But it’s not as old a word as you might think, and it hasn’t always meant what it means now.  “Family” showed up in English in the 1400s, adopted from French. What it meant at… Continue reading

Whether you’ve heard Heard it Through the Grapevine or not, you’ve probably heard of hearing through the grapevine, and you’ve probably heard things through the grapevine. But have you ever heard why you’d hear things through a grapevine in the first place?  The grapevine, as a metaphor for people passing information individually, one-by-one, dates back… Continue reading

Back in the British Isles of more than a thousand years ago, sloping off in a group to pummel the crew from the next town or county was common enough that everybody knew the first steps were to “kilt” your skirt or robe so your legs would be free (possibly to run the other way… Continue reading

The word “flibbertigibbet” is a cute label for somebody who tends to fly foolishly from one thing to another, or to chatter on nonsensically. It sort of seems like a frivolous word, and it even sounds like something that might have been coined in the late 1800s or so, doesn’t it?  Surprisingly enough (that means… Continue reading

Imagine you want to build a clock, but annoyingly enough, you find yourself stuck several centuries in the past, and you don’t really know how to start. The first thing you need is something that “ticks” in a reliably steady cadence. Enter the pendulum. Pendulums swing back and forth pretty steadily. Pendulums started being used… Continue reading

Again is a word that comes up…well, again and again in conversation. It’s been around for a very long time; at least since Old English. But its meaning contains a surprising little twist.  What you probably think of when you use “again” is repetition; you did something once, and if you do the same thing… Continue reading

Sir Arnold Lunn was a writer who seems to have been better known as a skier. He was knighted in England for his skiing, but not his authorship. He lived from 1888 to 1974, and there’s a monument to him in Mürren, Switzerland where he organized the first world skiing championship in 1931. His father… Continue reading