Posts Tagged ‘etymology’

Language By Example, Again

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

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 [...]

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Language By Example

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

I like to think I have a pretty large vocabulary, and more than that I kind of pride myself on understanding why words mean what they do–what the history behind them is.
Even so, there are lots of times I find myself using a word or phrase in a way that I’ve heard it used before, [...]

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Scottish protection rackets

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

Things I Learned Today #1: “blackmail” is a Scottish word, and the Highland Scots invented the protection rackets.
World Wide Words: Blackmail
The mail in blackmail (at various times also spelled maill, male and in other ways) is an old Scots word for rent. This was usually paid in what was often called white money, silver coins. [...]

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I Live (Kinda)

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008

(This is a bit journal-ish. Skip ahead if that kind of stuff doesn’t interest you.)
You know, the last time I can back from Australia, I was hungover and carrying the Aussie death flu bug, and I was wiped out for several weeks.
This time I seem to have been wiped out first, and then picked up [...]

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Things I Did Not Know

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

The expression “the worm turns”, commonly used (at least by me) to mean “the situation has changed and the previously disadvantaged party now holds the advantage”, is apparently an evolution of the old proverb, “Tread on a worm and it will turn.” The proverb was likely intended to say “even the lowliest creature will strike [...]

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