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In 1777, British explorer and navigator Captain James Cook brought a linguistic discovery back to England. The word taboo, Cook wrote in A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, encompassed an array of forbidden acts and behaviors in Tonga, a Polynesian...
Before the word chocolate came into the English language from Spanish, Hernan Cortes learned of a potent Aztec beverage made with cacahuaquchtl powder (the origin of the word “cocoa”), chili, musk, and honey. In a 1519 expedition to the New...
The history of words teaches us that food is the fuel of relationships. The word “companion”, from the Latin com “with” and panis “bread”, reminds us that food — and the brief respite allotted to people throughout history for sharing...
What do binge-watch, Brexit, and photobomb all have in common? They’ve all been named word of the year by the Collins English Dictionary. Binge-watch in 2015, Brexit in 2016, and photobomb in 2014. William Collins created The Collins English Dictionary...
The animal kingdom brings us a wealth of fascinating, unusual, and enlightening etymologies from around the world. In this article, we explore ten of them. Camel This beast of burden traces its linguistic heritage from the Latin camelus and Greek...
In pretty much every language, you can find the most basic and obvious equivalent of the word work – as a noun, meaning ‘job’ or ’employment,’ and as a verb, meaning ‘to engage in physical or mental activity to achieve...
Lithuanian Haris Poteris and his Dutch best friends Hermelien Griffel and Ron Wemel attend a French school for magic called Poudlard (“bacon lice”), get in trouble with the Dutch Severus Sneep, and receive medical attention from an Italian Madama Poppy...
Recently a friend brought to my attention a delightful collection of William Safire’s articles from the New York Times Magazine. Many years ago, my friend wrote Safire regarding the origins of the word “trivia”, which the celebrated journalist had mistakenly...
Why is an activity carried out by hand done “manually”? The arm’s terminus is called a hand in every Germanic language – with only minor variations like the Icelandic hönd — yet describing acts in which the hands are indispensable...
February is all about preparing for the coming spring. From Groundhog Day to Lent, the focus of this short month is readying ourselves for the glory of springtime (or at least reminding ourselves that it is coming so we can...
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