More gleanings: cob, shark, cowan, and the rest
The Oxford Etymologist shares his monthly gleanings on cob, shark, cowan, and more.
The Oxford Etymologist shares his monthly gleanings on cob, shark, cowan, and more.
John Eglin, author of “The Gambling Century” examines a portrait supposedly by William Hogarth to explore the history of gambling in Georgian England.
The Oxford Etymologist explores squash, squeeze, and the development of squ- words featuring the infamous s-mobile.
The Oxford Etymologist tackles the convoluted history of “bud” and “buddy”.
The root of riddle “puzzle,” from rædels(e), is Old English rædan “to read.”
The Oxford Etymologist the common but etymologically opaque verb “mope”, and other monosyllabic verbs.
Reading Dan Chaon’s novel Sleepwalk last summer, I noticed his use of the verb itch to mean scratch.
At this fearful time in American democracy, the best way to starve anti-democratic forces of their energy is to change the subject away from conservative religion and demand investment in civic education, democratic localism, and human rights.
This past April, the Oxford English Dictionary hosted the World English Symposium, a two-day event featuring a series of parallel sessions and panels on topics relating not only to varieties of English, but language prejudice, colonialism, and context-based English language teaching, among others.
Since George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020, social justice activists have targeted systemic racism in housing, education, and law enforcement. Less attention has been paid to entertainment. As the recent controversy over racial bias in the Academy Awards suggests, however, this problem has always existed in show business. The career of legendary vaudeville team Buck and Bubbles shows how it worked.
This week, the Oxford Etymologist answers readers questions in his latest etymology gleanings.
My today’s word is bonfire, which turned up in texts at the end of the fifteenth century. Seven years ago, I devoted a post to it but today I know more about this tricky compound and can write the story in a different way.
I was reading a column in a chess magazine when I came across the description of a game’s finish as a bygone conclusion. “That’s really weird,” I thought, “It should have said foregone conclusion.”
China has become a major player in global development. Its development finance now rivals World Bank lending in scale, and its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has grown to embrace 140 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.
It is curious how often those who have tried to explain the origin of English idioms have referred to the occupation of printers. Regardless of their success, the attempts are worthy of note.
This is the second and last part of the henchman tale, of which the first part appeared a week ago (August 25, 2021). The difficulties confronting an etymologist are two: 1) We don’t know exactly what the word henchman meant when it first surfaced in Middle English, and 2) the obscure Medieval Latin gloss used […]