A fabulous story, or spilling etymological beans
An instructive essay on etymology need not always be devoted to a word going back to the hoariest antiquity. It can also deal with an “exotic” borrowing like coffee, for example.
Some very unique redundancies
One of the quirkier features of the English syntax has to do with the simple word all. All is a quantity word, or quantifier in the terminology of grammarians and logicians. It indicates an entirety of something.
Coffee all over the world
An instructive essay on etymology need not always be devoted to a word going back to the hoariest antiquity. It can also deal with an “exotic” borrowing like coffee, for example.
On querns and millstones
Have you ever seen a quern? If you have not, Wikipedia has an informative page about this apparatus. Yet there is a hitch about the definition of quern. For instance, Wikipedia discusses various quern-stones, and indeed, pictures of all kinds of stones appear in the article. But stones don’t do anything without being set in motion.
Effective ways to communicate research in a journal article
In this blog post, editors of OUP journals delve into the vital aspect of clear communication in a journal article. Anne Foster (Editor of Diplomatic History), Eduardo Franco (Editor-in-Chief of JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer institute and JNCI Monographs), Howard Broman (Editor-in-Chief of ICES Journal of Marine Science), and Michael Schnoor (Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Leukocyte Biology) provide editorial recommendations on achieving clarity, avoiding common mistakes, and creating an effective structure
How to edit your writing: tips to perfect your journal article
Editing plays a significant role in improving the quality of your journal article and builds the bridge between the first draft and a submission-ready manuscript. You might picture grammatical corrections when you think of editing, but this process also improves the clarity, coherence, and accuracy of your writing.
Why are lips called lips?
A reader asked me to explain how I choose words for my essays. It is a long story, but I will try to make it short. When more than thirty years ago I began working on a new etymological dictionary of English, I compiled a list of words about which dictionaries say “origin unknown” and came up with about a thousand items. My other list contains “words of uncertain origin.”
Two nonidentical twins: rump and runt?
Rump and runt are not twins, but they sound somewhat alike, and they may be “distantly related,” to use a phrase sometimes occurring in dictionaries, though this phrase is too vague to be useful. Rump surfaced in texts only in the fifteenth century, and but for the Rump Parliament (1648-1653), famous in British History, the word would probably have been relegated mainly to talks about animals and bird.
A whale of a blog
The title of this post embodies everything I despise about cheap journalism, but the temptation was too strong, because today’s topic is indeed the origin of the word whale. I was planning the story for quite some time, and then suddenly the media informed the world that a spade-toothed whale had been washed up on South Island beach (Australia).
Words, emotions, and the story of great
First of all, many thanks to our two readers who sent me letters on sw-words and the linguistic environment of the adjective tiny.
How to choose the right journal
There are likely to be many suitable journals in your field, but targeting the right journal is an important decision, as where you choose to publish can influence the impact and visibility of your work.
Can a word have an existential crisis?
A while back, a philosopher friend of mine was fretting about the adjective “existential.” She was irked by people using it to refer to situations which threaten the existence of something, as when someone refers to climate change as an “existential crisis,” or more commonly, as “an existential threat.”
More English words for size: the size increases…
First of all, many thanks to our two readers who sent me letters on sw-words and the linguistic environment of the adjective tiny.
AI attitudes and behaviour: researcher profiles [interactive]
While 76% of researchers say they have used some form of AI tool in their research, our survey uncovered unexpected generational differences and polarised opinions on the impact of AI.
Words related to size, part two: tiny
Now that we know how untrivial the origin of small, little ~ leetle, and wee is (see the post for June 20, 2024), we are fully prepared to examine the puzzling history of tiny. Little pitchers have long ears, and inconspicuous words may have a nearly impenetrable etymology. It is hard to believe how much trouble the adjective tiny has given researchers.
Etymological small fry: some words for “size”
Quite recently, the Polish linguist Kamil Stachowski has published a paper “On the Spread and Evolution of pudding” (the source is the journal Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 141, 2024, 117-137).