Monthly Gleanings: May 2007
Anatoly reflects on his work in the past month.
Form an orderly queue, chaps: A quick guide to British English
The UK Early Bird gives a lighthearted guide to British English.
If You Eat A Cake, You Are Sure To Have It Later
By Anatoly Liberman What a blow to national pride: cake is a loanword from Scandinavian, and cookie has been taken over from Dutch! The story of cake is full of dangerous corners, as will become immediately obvious. Anyone who begins to learn Swedish soon discovers that the Swedish for cake is kaka.
Make Music and Carpe Diem,
Or, Etymological Fiddle-Faddle
By Anatoly Liberman The names of musical instruments are often loanwords, in English they are usually from Greek (via French intermediaries) or Italian. Sometimes their original forms are transparent. Thus the medieval wind instrument shawm goes back to Greek kalamos “reed”; nothing could be simpler.
“Your Sarvant, Sir,” Or
The Oddest English Spellings (Part 8)
Anatoly looks at some of the oddest English spellings.
American Slang Word of the Day
The editor has a “jelly-belly.”
Monthly Gleanings: April 2007
Anatoly’s April gleanings.
The Hopeless Word Loo
A stream of questions about the origin of loo never dries up…
Hamlet and Other Lads and Lasses:
Or, From Rags to Riches
Anatoly’s weekly column.
Monthly Gleanings: March 2007
Anatoly’s monthly gleanings.
One, Two, Three, Alairy…
Girls, in some parts of England and the United States, say, or rather chant, while bouncing a ball: “One, two, three, alairy, four five, six, alairy,” and so on. According to an “eyewitness report,” they say so, while bouncing a ball on the ground, catching it with one hand, keeping the score, and accompanying each alairy with a circular swing of the leg, so as to describe a loop around but not obstruct the rising ball.
Etymological Cocktail
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word “cocktail.”
Raining cats and dogs
This is an old chestnut. How did ‘Raining Cats and Dogs’ come into being, and stay, in the language? The possibilities are few. A foreign phrase is occasionally repeated verbatim or nearly so, and turns into gibberish. It is possible that the first ‘cats and dogs’ were not even animal names.
On Fourth and So Forth, Or The Oddest English Spellings (Part 7)
Anatoly looks at the oddest English spellings.
On A Self-Congratulatory Note
It is Anatoly’s Anniversary!!!!
Monthly Gleanings: February 2007
Anatoly Liberman’s monthly gleaings.