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Academic Insights for the Thinking World
The realization started with the word akimbo. I had first learned it as meaning a stance with hands on the hips, and I associated the stance with the comic book image of Superman confronting evildoers. Body language experts sometimes call this a power pose, intended to project confidence or dominance.
The Oxford Etymologist ruminates on the origins and meanings of idioms including “to go to hell in a handbasket.”
The Oxford Etymologist replies to etymology questions from readers.
The historical evolution of peace has led to the development of a substantial International Peace Architecture (IPA). However, the IPA’s historical development has overall been very slow, hidden, and fraught.
Today’s post is about the murky origin of the word “limb”.
When linguists talk about prosody, the term usually refers to aspects of speech that go beyond individual vowels and consonants such as intonation, stress, and rhythm. Such suprasegmental features may reflect the tone or focus of a sentence.
The Oxford Etymologist has examined the verbs “begin” and “start.” For consistency’s sake, it is now necessary to say something about the noun and the verb “end.”
The Oxford Etymologist has examined the verbs “begin” and “start.” For consistency’s sake, it is now necessary to say something about the noun and the verb “end.”
The Oxford Etymologist explores the origin of the verb “to start”.
Scottish poetry produced in the long eighteenth century might strike you as at once familiar and unknown. Hundreds of poets, balladists, and songwriters born or raised in Scotland throughout the long eighteenth century need to find new readerships.
The Oxford Etymologist explores the unfinished story of the word “begin”.
When Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Uncle Silas” appeared in 1864, its author was best known as the proprietor of the Dublin University Magazine and a writer of Irish historical novels. Yet, as advised by his publisher, Le Fanu had produced a work of fiction situated not in the Irish past but the English present.
English noun phrases have something called a “temporal interpretation.” That’s linguist-speak for how we understand their place in time relative to the tense of the verb.
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist responds to questions from readers on word borrowing across Hebrew, Greek, and Germanic, plus a few new etymology ideas.
Some words propagate like mushrooms: no roots but a sizable crowd of upstarts calling themselves relatives. Gr-words are the pet subject of all works on sound imitation and sound symbolism.
Reading literature has us think differently, with a subtler emotional lexicon. Explore three case studies into reading for identity, expression, and mental health from the Centre for Research into Reading, Literature, and Society (CRILS).