Pylimitics

Here’s an interesting thought experiment: using only words, how would you describe turning something “clockwise” to someone who’s never seen an analog clock? You could possibly refer to the movement of the sun in the sky, but you’d have to know whether you’re standing in the northern or southern hemisphere. As a particularly irritating extension… Continue reading

Trendy diets tend to have names, like keto or south beach. And some of them, like the Atkins diet, are named after the person who popularized them, usually by writing a book. One of the trendiest recommendations of recent diets is avoidance of carbohydrates. All this — low carbs, fashionable diets promoted by books, diets… Continue reading

The English word “flamboyant” is taken directly from French. That is, in French the word is the same, but the meaning differs. And the meaning in French has changed in interesting ways since the 1500s, and also since the 1800s, which is when it started to appear in English. The French word is probably older… Continue reading

What we call a “yard” was, in Old English, a “geard.” It was pronounced about the same way, but the word did something unusual during the transition to modern English: it split into two words, with “yard” keeping the Old English “g” sound that’s more like a “y,” but in the other (“garth”) the “g”… Continue reading