This term traces its origins directly to the Latin adjective nona, which was used to refer to the ninth hour of the day. Since the Romans set daytime hours as those from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., the ninth hour was actually 3 p.m. As the influence of the early …
The Alka-Seltzer story began in the winter of 1928, when Hub Beardsley, president of the Dr. Miles Laboratories, visited the offices of a local newspaper in a small town in Indiana called Elkhart. There was a severe flu epidemic that year. Many of Beardsley’s own employees were out sick. But …
Why doesn’t English have an expression for the space between the teeth when Malay does – gigi rongak? And that’s not the only gap in our dental vocabulary: mrongos (Indonesian) to have ugly protruding upper teeth angil (Kapampangan, Philippines) to bare the fangs like a dog laglerolarpok (Inuit) the …
The first and most essential word in all languages is surely ‘hello’, the word that enables one human being to converse with another, such as: aa (Diola, Senegal) beeta (Soninke, Mali, Senegal and Ivory Coast) bok (Croatian) boozhoo (Ojibwe, USA and Canada) daw-daw (Jutlandish, Denmark) ella (Awabakal, Australia) i …
The other day somebody asked me where the phrase oops-a-daisy comes from. Of course, I didn’t know, but I never feel that Ignorance should stand in the way of Opinion, so I muttered something about lackadaisical and tried to look wise. By extraordinary coincidence, it turns out that I …
Those who have never liked the fine distinctions of English spelling will rejoice to learn that the first recorded use of the word stationery, in Nathan Bailey’s Universal Etymological English Dictionary of 1727, goes thus: Stationary – Stationers Wares The -ary -ery distinction was only introduced in the nineteenth …
It’s a delightful little oddity of the English language that the phrase the big cheese has nothing whatsoever to do with milk products. The Urdu word for thing is chīz. This meant that back in the days of the British Empire Anglo Indians wouldn’t talk about something being the real …
Noon traces its origins directly to the Latin adjective nona, which was used to refer to the ninth hour of the day. Since the Romans set daytime hours as those from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., the ninth hour was actually 3 p.m. As the influence of the early Christian …
While opinions vary about the origin of the word “Tartar,” all agree that 13th-century western Europeans used the term to refer to invading Mongol tribes. The word was actually a derivative of the name the ancient Romans used to refer to Tartarus, the area in the underworld where evil people …
Salt was man’s first food seasoning, and it so dramatically altered his eating habits that it is not at all surprising that the action of spilling the precious ingredient became tantamount to bad luck. Following an accidental spilling of salt, a superstitious nullifying gesture such as throwing a pinch …
