Flunkeys and lackeys two centuries ago
In An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology, I called William L. Blackley’s 1869 book Word Gossip singularly uninformative, and I am sorry for that remark.
In full swing
I received a letter with a question about the etymology of swag “booty; cockiness, etc.” The reader complained that dictionaries have nothing to say about the origin of this word. She is quite right.
Does the media we consume impact our emotions?
There’s a saying in Western philosophy, echoed in some other philosophical traditions globally: “the end of labor is to gain leisure.” It’s a reminder that for all of the toil and turmoil that we engage in our daily lives, the fruits of such labor come in securing a means to pursue our own self interests.
Cringing with dignity, or the crux of the matter
I have “sauntered,” I have paid some respect to “lust” (see the previous two posts), and now I am ready “to cringe.” The most interesting part of today’s story is not even the origin of the verb cringe but the multitude of words, possibly related to it and explaining nothing.
The four-letter word lust
Years ago, I wrote about our four-letter words, and the comments were, as could be expected, numerous. Incidentally, the origin of those words is nether too interesting nor (in at least one case) too complicated. Lust is not l*** or l**t, and one can speak about it, without hurting anyone’s sensibilities.
Sauntering is hard work
To saunter “to walk in a leisurely way, stroll” is a verb, famous for its etymological opacity. It is instructive and a bit frustrating to read the literature on this word, published between roughly 1874 and 1910, though a few amusing notes in my collection antedate the eighteen-seventies.
On a limb
One can teach an advanced course on etymology, while climbing up the leg, ant-wise. On foot we reach the territory of Indo-European, but it is not every day that an English word finds itself in such respectable company.
A grim shadow of a broad grin
While working on the post about mean and moan, I decided to write something about groan, but I did not realize how far this word would take me.
A dictionary dance around Hag
As usual, I’ll begin with a comment on the letters I have received. I never wrote that too few queries about words of unknown origin were coming my way: I complained that a stream of letters addressed to Oxford Etymologist had in principle become a trickle.
The end of the witch hunt
My sincere thanks to all those who commented on the recent posts. I have never heard about the rule about one day referring only to the future.
Witches and witchcraft
Right after the appearance of the post on hag (March 5, 2025), I received a letter with a question about the origin of the word witch.
The hag’s revenge and vindication
This is an essay on the word hag, but let me first thank those who have commented on the latest posts, corrected the mistakes, and made suggestions.
Idiomatic pigs and hogs
According to an aphorism by Maxim Gorky, he who was born to crawl won’t fly. This is probably true of most other creatures. For instance, English speakers have great doubts about the ability of pigs to fly.
Dwarf and its past
First, my thanks to those who wrote kind words about my most recent essays. Especially welcome was the comment that sounded approximately so: “I understand almost nothing in his posts but always enjoy them.” It has always been my aim not only to provide my readers, listeners, and students with information but also to be a source of pure, unmitigated joy.
Slow and fast worms, herring, and their linguistic kin
I received several questions in connection with my post for January 29, 2025, on the origin of the word eel and decided to answer them right away and in doing will revive the format of “gleanings.”
Slippery as an eel, merry as a grig
My post on Yule redux (January 22, 2025) engendered two responses. One, published as a comment, states that my essays give the correspondent a lot of joy, though he does not understand much of what I say. I never thought that my writings sound like some sort of glossolalia.