Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
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.
A personal note from the editor.
Anatoly’s April gleanings.
A stream of questions about the origin of loo never dries up…
Anatoly’s weekly column.
Anatoly’s monthly gleanings.
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.
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word “cocktail.”
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.
Anatoly looks at the oddest English spellings.
It is Anatoly’s Anniversary!!!!
Anatoly Liberman’s monthly gleaings.
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origin of the word “brain.”
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origin of the word “dildo.”