Monthly Gleanings
Anatoly answers questions.
Lite Beer and Donuts, or, Does Spelling Reform Have a Chance?
Anatoly finds the appropriate sustenance for spelling reformers.
Germanic Hermaphrodites
Hermaphrodites are born rarely, and it is far from clear why their mythology achieved such prominence in Antiquity. Reference to cross-dressing during certain marriage rites does not go far, but the cult of Hermaphroditus is a fact, and Ovid’s tale of the union in one body of the son of Hermes and Aphrodite is well-known.
Etymology, Serendipity, and Good Luck
Anatoly gives a candid take on etymology.
Monthly Gleanings
Questions for the month are answered.
Severed Relations
Anatoly explores why some words naturally go together.
Snob Before and After Thackeray
Anatoly seeks the origin of “snob”.
The Eternal Fascination of OK
Anatoly explores the history of OK.
The Oddest English Spellings
Anatoly explores the history of spelling with the letter w.
Not All That is Paltry is Trivial
Anatoly wonders why we double up on names in certain words.
Women Who Walk Heavily or Too Much
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.
Still in the Bottleneck, or, Chasing for the First Fiasco
Anatoly examines the origin of the word fiasco.
How the Protocharlatan Escaped Justice
This story might be titled “Some Words Have a Reputation to Live Up To,” (Part Two). While tracing the convoluted history of ‘charade’, I promised to devote some space to ‘charlatan’. The element ‘char-‘ unites them, and in scholarly works they have frequently been mentioned in one breath.
Monthly Gleanings
Anatoly answers questions posed in March.
Some Words Have A Reputation To Live Up To
It is not fortuitous that many words like ‘puzzle’, ‘conundrum’, and ‘quiz’ are themselves puzzles from an etymological point of view. They arose as slang, sometimes as student slang, and as we don’t know the circumstances in which they were coined, our chances of discovering their origin is low.
Wild Honey With and Without Locusts
Two opposite forces act on the brain of someone who sets out to trace the origin of a word. To cite the most famous cases, coward is supposedly a “corruption” of cowherd and sirloin came into being when an English king dubbed an edible loin at table (Sir Loin). Such fantasies have tremendous appeal.