Pylimitics

A “gauntlet” is a kind of glove. Originally it was a reinforced glove that was the part of medieval armor that protected the hand. Even today a “gauntlet” would usually be a glove of the larger, sturdier sort. But gauntlets weren’t just used for protection. A gauntlet might have been thrown down to signal a… Continue reading

You hear it all the time: “third-world countries,” or “that’s a first-world problem.” But you hardly ever hear about the second world. And oddly enough, even though the whole idea of categorizing nations as first-, second-, and third-world hasn’t been around all that long, today’s phrases have already shifted in meaning from their original usage.… Continue reading

An oversight of oversight Having oversight of something means you’re in charge of it, or managing it. It’s a pretty old word, and has been used to mean some form of authority or supervision for centuries. Queen Margaret of Anjou used “oversight” in this way in a letter from about 1421: “Send sum trusty man… Continue reading

Gardens are shut down this time of year, but you’ve got the whole winter to plan to fit out your plot with “Cotswold stone retaining walls; vaguely Spanish wrought iron gates; crazy paving… colored yellow, green, and pink; irregular ponds of pale blue fibreglass fed by streams of impossible source; gnomes, fairies, and animals, usually… Continue reading

If you ease the burden of something, you might say that you “lightened” it. If you make something less messy, you’ve “tidied.” But not “tidy-ened.” When you make something easier to understand, you’ve “clarified” — but not “clearened” or “claried.” And for that matter, if you go around your room straightening and correcting things, you’ve… Continue reading