2023 and adventures in the idiom wonderland
The Oxford Etymologist explores a selection of idioms, including the amazing story of the phrase “fox’s wedding.”
Six books from 2022 to add to your 2023 reading list
Here are six books from 2022 that reviewers and critics loved that you should add to your 2023 reading list.
Infectious disease in the twentieth century
In the first half of the century, the three great killers among endemic diseases—smallpox, malaria, and tuberculosis—raging around the world (we think today of malaria as a tropical malady but in the 1920s there were outbreaks as far north as Siberia) were each responsible for more deaths than the 80 million who died in both world wars. Innovations stemming from the Second World War, an immense hothouse of technological progress, made it possible to contemplate combatting infectious disease on a global scale.
Can you itch an itch?
Reading Dan Chaon’s novel Sleepwalk last summer, I noticed his use of the verb itch to mean scratch.
Domestic violence: deconstructing the “gender paradigm”
Most people—and not just the average citizen but, sadly, most policy makers and other stakeholders—hold mistaken and distorted beliefs about intimate partner violence (IPV). This is what some call the “gender paradigm.”
Skin-deep: wrinkle, pimple, and mole
The history of “dude” has been documented with amazing accuracy.
What’s next for China? Sustainability, technology, and the world’s future
We must re-envision our thinking about China’s rise and its role in the world in terms of two newer issue areas, sustainability and emerging technology.
Funny how it ain’t so funny: casting, Funny Girl, and Broadway’s body issues
Sometimes the meeting of an actor and a role produces a rare kind of alchemy that forever bonds the two… and sometimes the opposite happens. The former occurred when twenty-one-year-old Barbra Streisand was cast as famed comedienne Fanny Brice in the 1964 musical Funny Girl.
Leonardo and the Salvator Mundi: fame and infamy
When people ask me about the Salvator Mundi, just like Google, I can predict the questions they will “also ask.”
The history of Ancient Rome: a timeline
From Octavian’s victory at Actium to its traditional endpoint in the West, the Roman Empire lasted a solid 500 years—one-fifth of all recorded history. Embark on your own journey through the past with this informative timeline detailing major events within the Roman Empire.
Dude: a long history of a short word
The history of “dude” has been documented with amazing accuracy.
Weird Moby-Dick
There are a lot of peculiar phrases in Moby-Dick. My new introduction to the second Oxford World’s Classics edition of Herman Melville’s novel highlights the startling weirdness of the book, both in its literary form and its language.
Becoming Emeritus
When I received the letter granting me emeritus status, I naturally got curious about the etymology.
How to identify a scientific fact
When do we have a scientific fact? Scientists, policymakers, and laypersons could all use an answer to this question. But despite its obvious importance, humanity lacks a good answer.
Say cheese, or l’esprit d’escalier neglected and forgotten
As everybody knows, the phrase in the title, l’esprit d’escalier, refers to a good thought occurring too late.
Bringing the Church back in: European state-formation, AD 1000-1500 [long read]
European state-formation would have looked very different if rulers did not constantly have to negotiate with a strong clergy, independent townsmen, and the nobility over, inter alia, the wherewithal for warfare, succession and public peace. But the medieval Church shaped European societies in other ways than this. It was the one institution of late antiquity that survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, and it carried the torch of the Roman world after the Empire collapsed.