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Don’t go there
Eponyms are words that come from someone’s name. “Flack” is an eponym because it came from Gene Flack. “Dickens”, as in the somewhat old fashioned “oh he’s just a little dickens,” is not an eponym; “dickens” was a synonym for “devil” a couple of centuries ago. But “boycott,” refusing to engage in commerce for some Continue reading
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Just walk away, Renee
Some time ago — and by “some time” I mean roughly a century and a half and more — if you were going to walk somewhere fairly distant you might say you were going to “ride shank’s mare” or “shank’s pony.” “Shank” means shin, and the expression came out of Scotland sometime in the 1700s. Continue reading
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George Peele
Today is quite possibly the anniversary of the birth of George Peele, who may have written a number of famous plays in 1500s England, may have collaborated with Shakespeare, and might have written a play that Shakespeare used as a basis for the play King John. Peele might have had red hair. He might have Continue reading
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July 25
One of the things you learn in school in the US is that the Revolutionary War took place in North America, mostly involved colonial troops versus the British (or their mercenaries), and ended when George Washington defeated General Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. Not a single one of those things are true. The final battle Continue reading
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Those are not from there
Guinea pigs are a bit of a puzzle, terminology-wise. They’re rodents, not pigs. They’re not from Guinea, either; they were first found in South America — or rather, their ancestors were; the guinea pigs that are now pets have been domesticated enough that they differ quite a bit from the wild variety. Not quite to Continue reading
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Madame X
We should have a party — but keep it confidential, with a very carefully vetted guest list — because today is the anniversary of the birth of Madame X. Madame X was not her real name, of course. She was born Agnes Meyer in 1889, in a small town in Illinois in the US. Her Continue reading
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Bigger than a puddle
One thing about English is that the number of words it includes has gotten completely out of hand. Although there isn’t any way to figure out what the actual total is (it’s not that easy to decide what counts as a word), there are probably at least 250,000. There are even estimates as high as Continue reading
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The Scent of July 23
If you buy a popular product, at least in the US, there’s a chance that if it sounds like it’s named after someone (like Mrs. Butterworth’s maple syrup, or Francesco Rinaldi Italian foods), there was either no such person or sometimes a completely unrelated person. For example, the Dr. Pepper carbonated drink might be named Continue reading
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July 24
Twenty-five dollars per month. That was all. It wasn’t an inconsequential sum; that provided a measure of reassurance. But now it was 1895, which made him 33 years old, and he was sure his friends would say to him “Bill! Bill Porter! You’re a family man now, and you’ve just moved to Houston. Will $25 Continue reading
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Don’t worry, be….
One of the bewilderingly many ways to form words in English is by prepending “be-.” That is, the syllable “be” is put in front of another word, which then becomes a new word. If English was read top to bottom instead of left to right, of course, the modified, bespoke word would be beneath the 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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peterharbeson@me.com