Pylimitics

When you’re considering a choice involving different alternatives, you can be said to be “weighing your options.” “Weighing” in this context means pondering or thinking over carefully. If you take that idea, that “weighing” is “considering,” and you go back a few centuries to when English took a look at Latin and saw a vulnerable… Continue reading

“That neighborhood is going to the dogs” means that it’s deteriorating. It doesn’t have anything to do with real dogs; it’s the equivalent of saying “that neighborhood is going to rack and ruin,” which, again, doesn’t have anything to do with an actual rack.  In the case of “rack and ruin,” though, “rack” is really… Continue reading

The Ancient Greeks had some ideas that have not, to say the least, held up well over the centuries. One of their strangest was “eggastimuthos.” That’s the belief that the sounds from someone’s belly (as they digest a meal, for example) could both mean something and be coming from “somewhere else.” Specifically, they could be… Continue reading

In ancient Greece, a “sophist” was a teacher for hire. The word’s literal meaning is “I am wise”, but its usage went beyond that. The reason the term is part of modern English goes back to Socrates and Plato, who didn’t think much of the sophists. The sophists were well educated, but instead of turning… Continue reading