Snob Before and After Thackeray
Anatoly seeks the origin of “snob”.
Anatoly seeks the origin of “snob”.
Ammon Shea on reading the OED.
A look at the word “flatter.”
Anatoly explores the history of OK.
Word blending is a full-time sport in the world of dog breeding. Any two breeds, and their appellations, might spawn a blend. Some recent designer breeds, as they are known, include ‘Beagadors’ (Beagle and Labrador), ‘Maltipon’ (Maltese and Pomeranian) and ‘Jackabees’ (Jack Russell and Beagle).
[display_podcast] Although places like Afghanistan, Kurdistan, and Turkistan have had their names for maybe a thousand years and tend to be in the same general part of the world as Pakistan—that is, sort of north and west of India—Pakistan is a made-up name that hasn’t been around even 100 years.
Anatoly explores the history of spelling with the letter w.
Ammon Shea wonders who wrote the first English dictionary.
A look at the word “glossary”.
Anatoly wonders why we double up on names in certain words.
Ammon Shea shares a pet peeve.
[display_podcast] The word clique sounds French doesn’t it. Well, it was. Of course it means “a tight group of people” and is often used in a disparaging way.
By Anatoly Liberman In olden days women were supposed to be sweet, docile, and, if possible, incorporeal. On the other hand, men, subject to the universal law of contrasts, threw their weight about, and, once they “arrived,” demonstrated corpulence. They invented countless offensive words referring to women’s way of walking.
This is, I’m sad to say, the final installment of “From A to Zimmer” on OUPblog. As of next week I’m departing Oxford University Press for a new position as executive producer of ‘Visual Thesaurus’. I’ve greatly enjoyed the platform afforded me by OUPblog, but I’ve always had a niggling concern.
Ammon Shea explains how dictionaries ruined his Scrabble game.
Charles Hodgson looks at the word “replica.”