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Liable to a jobation
English tends to have plenty of extra words and phrases for common things. There are loads of synonyms for “money”, for example, and money is certainly something commonplace. Something else you’re likely to encounter repeatedly — sometimes even in the course of a single day — is scolding. Or, if you prefer, rebuking, criticizing, giving Continue reading
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A prologue to prolegomenon
“Prolegomenon” was borrowed straight from Latin in the early 1600s, about the time when authors in English got a serious grasp on the sequence “I’ll tell you want I’m gonna tell you, then I’lll tell you, then I’ll tell you what I just told you.” It’s either an introductory chapter, or in more ambitious undertakings, Continue reading
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Henry Fielding
Today is the anniversary of Henry Fielding’s birth, in 1707. He was born in England, to a privileged family (his uncle was an Earl), he was raised by his grandmother after his mother died when he was 11. Not too much is known about his early years, but he was probably not a model child Continue reading
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You could look it up
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) contains over 300,000 entries — and that’s just the “main” entries; there are minor entries and subentries galore. There have so far been only two editions of the OED, the first published starting in 1884 (it took until 1928 to finish the whole publication) and the second in 1989. They Continue reading
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Flummox
It first showed up in The Pickwick Papers, published in 1836. Charles Dickens was the author, but it was his first novel, and originally he used the pseudonym “Boz.” He also used that name on his very first publication, Sketches by Boz. Incidentally, the original title of The Pickwick Papers was the The Posthumous Papers Continue reading
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Sarah Bagley
Labor activism, organizing, and battles between owners of machines and the people who operated them have been going on ever since industrial machinery has existed. Sarah George Bagley was born in New Hampshire, in the US, on April 19,1806, and was a labor leader during the 1840s. Bagley was born in a rural household; the Continue reading
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(Lack of) Radio Silence
One characteristic of English that makes word games possible is the typical patterns of letter combinations. For instance, there are combinations like “st” and “pr” that you run into all the time. On the other hand, you hardly ever see “kf” or “jp” in combination. When you find a word that includes a rare combination, Continue reading
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A pine how-do-you-do
“Pining away” is something one does when exhausted by emotional suffering. Like when you’re a dog, and your human goes to work without you. Or when you’re the heroine of a romance novel and your prince charming is called away by the king to go into battle against the bad guys. Nowadays it’s considered a Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate Bossypaws. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Check out my other blog, Techlimitics, where I’m grappling with the nature of simplicity.
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