Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
When I was growing up, I read Paul de Kruif’s book Microbe Hunters so many times that I still remember some pages by heart. Two chapters in the book are devoted to Pasteur. The second is called “Pasteur and the Mad Dog.” A book about great word hunters would similarly enthral the young and the old.
Anatoly looks at weird spellings.
Anatoly Liberman looks at the death of the adverb.
Anatoly looks at the origins of words we use today.
Anatoly answers this month’s questions.
Even a quick look at the history of words meaning “break” shows how often they begin with the sound group br-. Break has cognates in several Germanic languages. The main Old Scandinavian verb was different (compare Modern Swedish bryta, Norwegian bryte, and so forth), but it, too, began with br-.
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word cockney.
Anatoly is feeling a bit “mad” this week.
Anatoly looks at confusables.
Anatoly weighs in on curmudgeon and catawampus.
Anatoly weighs in on pimps and faggots.
Anatoly looks at where pimps and faggots come together.
Anatoly reflects on his work in the past month.
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.
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.
Anatoly looks at some of the oddest English spellings.