Late winter etymology gleanings and a few little-known idioms
Ms. Melissa Mizel found my post for July 29, 2009, on the ethnic slur Sheeny “Jew” and sent me her idea about the etymology of this ugly word.
The first women’s shelter in Europe? Radegund’s Holy Cross
‘With the passion of a focused mind, I considered how to advance other women so that—the Lord willing—my own desires might prove beneficial for others. […] I established a monastery for girls in the city of Poitiers. After its foundation, I endowed the monastery with however much wealth I had received from the generosity of the king.’
A four-forked etymology: curfew
It appears that the etymology of curfew has been solved. In any case, all modern dictionaries say the same. The English word surfaced in texts in the early fourteenth century, but a signal to people to extinguish their fires is much older.
“Indian summer” and other curious idioms
The Internet is full of information about the origin of the phrase Indian summer. Everything said there about this idiom, its use, the puzzling reference to Indian, as well as about a desired replacement of Indian by a word devoid of ethnic connotations and about the synonyms for the phrase in the languages of the world, is correct.
Aleph-AI: an organizing force or creative destruction in the artificial era?
The Aleph is a blazing space of about an inch diameter containing the cosmos, tells us Jorge Luis Borges in 1945, after being invited to see it in the basement of a house. The Aleph deeply disrupted him, revealing millions of delightful and awful scenes, simultaneously.
Less-than-universal basic income
Ten years ago, almost no one in the United States had heard of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Today, chances are that the average college graduate has not only heard of the idea, but probably holds a very strong opinion about it.
Could lonely and isolated older adults be prescribed a cat by their doctor?
Many older adults struggle with isolation and loneliness. Could cats be the solution? At the same time, many humane societies have more cats to rehome than they can manage. Could lonely older adults be the solution?
A librarian’s reflections on 2023
What did 2023 hold for academic libraries? What progress have we seen in the library sector? What challenges have academic libraries faced?
Etymologicon and other books on etymology
In the previous post, I answered the first question from our correspondents (idioms with the names of body parts in them) and promised to answer the other one I had received during the break. The second question concerned the book titled The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections.
Living Black in Lakewood: rewriting the history and future of an iconic suburb [Long Read]
In the annals of American suburban history, Lakewood stands as an icon of the postwar suburb, alongside Levittown, NY, and Park Forest, Ill. Noted not only for its rapid-fire construction—17,500 homes built from 1950-1953—it was also critiqued for its architectural monotony, alarming writers at the time who feared that uniform homes would spit out uniform people. That worry quickly faded when the demography of Lakewood began to change.
How can business leaders add value with intuition in the age of AI? [Long Read]
In a speech to the Economic Club of Washington in 2018, Jeff Bezos described how Amazon made sense of the challenge of if and how to design and implement a loyalty scheme for its customers. This was a highly consequential decision for the business; for some time, Amazon had been searching for an answer to the question: “what would loyalty program for Amazon look like?”
A junior software engineer came up with the idea of fast, free shipping. But a big problem was that shipping is expensive. Also, customers like free shipping, so much so that the big eaters at Amazon’s “buffet” would take advantage by free shipping low-cost items which would not be good for Amazon’s bottom-line. When the Amazon finance team modelled the idea of fast, free shipping the results “didn’t look pretty.” In fact, they were nothing short of “horrifying.”
Chick Webb meets Chick Webb: Fact and fiction in James McBride’s new novel
Chick Webb’s drumbeats resonate through much of James McBride’s fast-paced new novel “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.” McBride, one of America’s most beloved authors today, weaves Webb into this story early on.
More gleanings: cob, shark, cowan, and the rest
The Oxford Etymologist shares his monthly gleanings on cob, shark, cowan, and more.
“Happy Birthday” to the Linguistic Society of America
In January 2024, the Linguistic Society of America celebrates its 100th anniversary. And one thing you can be sure of is that “Happy Birthday” will be sung.
Flow of time: reality or illusion?
Real time of space-time is one of the dimensions on which we comprehend and describe reality. Time neither flows, nor flies, or drags on; it doesn’t run out and is not a commodity that can be wasted.
Highfalutin, cowan, and all, all, all… Gleanings at last!
The Oxford Etymologist shares a new explanation for “highfalutin” from a reader of the blog, which, if accepted, “will be a small step forward in the study of word origins.”