Pylimitics

Nowadays being “enthusiastic” is generally considered a good thing. It means you’re intensely interested in something (like a hobby), you enjoy it very much (like a piece of music), or you highly approve of it (like your favorite sports team). This hasn’t always been the case, though. “Enthusiasm” came from the Greek word “enthousiasmos,” which Continue reading

“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.” (Groucho Marx) “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” (Benjamin Franklin) Those are examples of “antanaclasis,” which is repeating a word (or a phrase), and using it in a different sense the second time. The word comes from Latin, Continue reading

Horatio Nelson, the famous British admiral, served in the Mediterranean Sea in the late 1700s, before the French Revolution. From 1799 to 1801 his flagship was the HMS Foudroyant. British warships are often named for admirable qualities, like the HMS Resolute or HMS Victory, and the Foudroyant was no different, even though few people would Continue reading

When a craftsperson, artist, musician, or writer manages to fit a set of components together to make a congruous, harmonious whole, there used to be a word for it. Well, of course, there still are words for it — after all, I just used “congruous” and “harmonious.” And “consistency” and “elegance” could be added as Continue reading

It’s common to almost everyone that they think of a cause for what they see, coming up with an explanation that seems reasonable, at least given what they know at the time. Before things like germs, viruses, and some of the actual processes operating in your body were discovered, people dreamed up any number of Continue reading