John Hodgman: "Did I ever tell you people how much I hate the word 'meh'? Nothing announces 'I have missed the point' more than that word. It is the essence of blinkered Internet malcontentism. And a rejection of joy. By definition, it may mean disinterest (although simple silence would be a mo...

As I said the last time I talked about this, several times a week I find myself saying something and I realize that while I know what it means, I don’t know why it means that. When I catch myself at this, I’m off to find out why. This morning brought two new examples. The first was ̶...

I wondered why the word makeshift means what it means to us. Here is a common word made up of two other common words and seems to have no relationship at all to either of the words it’s made up of. I looked at news reports to see how other people were using the word makeshift and I saw referen...

Jolly Yule : OUPblog Anatoly Liberman discusses the origin of the word "Yule":Yule (the word) has been the object of endless speculation, but its prehistory will probably remain hidden for all times. The vengeful pagan gods reveal their secrets grudgingly. They allow us to burn the Yule log but keep...

William Tyndale (Image from Wikipedia ) Yesterday's post -- in which I inquired why the English term "atonement" is used to define the Hebrew word for "covering" ("kapara") -- received a comment from Dave (Balashon), a blogger in Israel who uses his blog to investigate Hebrew terms, for he has poste...

The Ark of God Carried into the Temple Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry , Folio 29r Musée Condé, Chantilly Place of the Kaporet (Image from Wikipedia ) Last Sunday during Bible study, the topic of "atonement" came up in discussion, and one of the participants noted that the word literally m...

I'm procrastinating this morning, so I'm just going to rant about something that sticks in my craw: the use of the stupid-ass, bureaucratspeak phrase "your mileage may vary" to mean "your experience might be different"....

If you are a Child of the Eighties as I am, then you doubtless are familiar with the concept of the noogie. If not, then check out this clever animation from YouTube that illustrates the process: YouTube.com: Hyuuga Household - Noogie Time Believe it or not, the Oxford English Dictionary contains an...

What is the origin of the cross-linguistic "kutt"-like root for dog? The word for dog in Hungarian is kutya. In Hindi/Urdu it is kutta. I assumed Hungarian had borrowed from Romani, which shares vocabulary with the North Indian languages. But this is not likely since the Romani of that reg...

Although if you read my blog regularly you might conclude otherwise, I am pretty turned off by all matters scatological. Today’s word under consideration, the rather harsh-sounding and stomach-wrenching noun turd, appears in this space only because it has such an interesting etymology. In cont...