Doppelganger names
We often think of personal names as specific to an individual, and sometimes they are. Yet often they are not. After all, the same individual may go by more than one name.
The words we use
The town where I live has a good newspaper. From time to time, it gives advice to its readers for avoiding language mistakes and for speaking correct English.
A vicious beehive
I have “sauntered,” I have paid some respect to “lust” (see the previous two posts), and now I am ready “to cringe.” The most interesting part of today’s story is not even the origin of the verb cringe but the multitude of words, possibly related to it and explaining nothing.
What I learned from reading Harlan Ellison
When I was in high school, I went through a Harlan Ellison phase. Ellison, who died in 2017, was a prolific science fiction and screenwriter and the author of such stories as “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman,” “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream,” and “A Boy and His Dog,” as well as the celebrated Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever.”
Cringing with dignity, or the crux of the matter
I have “sauntered,” I have paid some respect to “lust” (see the previous two posts), and now I am ready “to cringe.” The most interesting part of today’s story is not even the origin of the verb cringe but the multitude of words, possibly related to it and explaining nothing.
The four-letter word lust
Years ago, I wrote about our four-letter words, and the comments were, as could be expected, numerous. Incidentally, the origin of those words is nether too interesting nor (in at least one case) too complicated. Lust is not l*** or l**t, and one can speak about it, without hurting anyone’s sensibilities.
Speaking in and about tongues
First of all, let me thank those who commented on the previous posts and said so many kind words about the blog. Invigorated by this support, I am ready to ask the greatest question that should bother a philologist: Why is the tongue called tongue?
In free fall, being also a story of and about love
This is a story of the adjective free, and the story is complicated. Let me begin from afar.
Sauntering is hard work
To saunter “to walk in a leisurely way, stroll” is a verb, famous for its etymological opacity. It is instructive and a bit frustrating to read the literature on this word, published between roughly 1874 and 1910, though a few amusing notes in my collection antedate the eighteen-seventies.
What to do with too many books?
A while ago, my wife and I had some work done on our house, which entailed packing up a half-dozen bookcases until the work was done. We took the opportunity to sift through our books and to decide what we no longer needed. Deciding what to keep and what to let go of was a delicate negotiation. But equally tricky was deciding what to do with books we no longer needed.
The salt of the earth and salt in a saltcellar
First of all, my thanks to those who commented on the previous posts. Don’t miss the note about the ancient Romans’ view of babies on the father’s knee and the suggestion that the idiom to pull one’s leg may be of nautical origin.
On a limb
One can teach an advanced course on etymology, while climbing up the leg, ant-wise. On foot we reach the territory of Indo-European, but it is not every day that an English word finds itself in such respectable company.
A grim shadow of a broad grin
While working on the post about mean and moan, I decided to write something about groan, but I did not realize how far this word would take me.
From meaning to moaning
Few people realize how troublesome the word mean is. We have mean as in meaning (“what do you mean?”); mean “ignoble, base” (as in such a mean fellow), and mean, as in the meantime and meanwhile.
Slow down your writing
Sentences that are clear in our heads may be less clear when they come out of our mouths. When we talk, we get feedback from our audience or conversational partners. We observe facial expressions and body language. People may ask for clarification when something is not clear or they may correct us when we misspeak. Understanding is never perfect, but it’s doable in many face-to-face instances. On the page or the screen, it’s a different story.
A dictionary dance around Hag
As usual, I’ll begin with a comment on the letters I have received. I never wrote that too few queries about words of unknown origin were coming my way: I complained that a stream of letters addressed to Oxford Etymologist had in principle become a trickle.