Blogarama: The Oldest Blog Directory

A few more travels, and we’ll reach our destination. Last week (February 20, 2019), we spent some time in Coventry, where no one dispatched us: we went there driven by curiosity. It tu… Read More

Several years ago, I devoted a series of posts to the origin of English kl-words: cloud, cloth, clover; perhaps there were more (June 29, 2016, July 13, 2016, and August 10, 2016). Cleave, c… Read More

Here is another attack on sl-words, a continuation of the one celebrated last week (“The sl-morass”). There, I mentioned the fact that a word beginning with sl– tends to de… Read More

UK classic rock legends Wishbone Ash US Tour begins April 10, 2019!In the ramp-up to Wishbone Ash's 50th anniversary, the band is celebrating its 49th year in characteristic fashion: with an… Read More

Strange as it may seem to those who are not familiar with the niceties of English etymology, dream is not only a word of questionable origin but also a word whose recorded history in Germani… Read More

I have not posted any gleanings for a long time, because, sadly, the comments and questions have been very few, but at the moment, I have enough for two pages or so and will answer everybody… Read More

I have received several questions about sl– and sn– words and will soon answer them, but today I’ll write about the word that has interested me for a long time, especially… Read More

We read that Helgi, one of the greatest heroes of Old Norse poetry, sneaked, disguised as a bondmaid, into the palace of his father’s murderer and applied himself to a grindstone, but… Read More

Parting formulasI received a question about the origin of French adieu and its close analogs in the other Romance languages. This question is easy to answer. The word goes back to the phrase… Read More

Image by/from Master of Jacques de Besançon The Tree of Jesse is a depiction in art of the ancestors of Christ, shown in a tree which rises from Jesse of Bethlehem, the father of King… Read More

Stinging and gnawing insects are not only a nuisance in everyday life; they also harass etymologists. Those curious about such things may look at my post on bug for June 3, 2015. After hover… Read More

Three comments on the most recent postsHunt: etymologyThe Greek verb meaning “chase, hunt” has the root kīn (with long i), and that is why some speakers of British English p… Read More

Part 2I am picking up where I left off last week. The word adz(e) was coined long ago and surfaced more than once in Old English texts. It had several local variants, and its gender fluctuat… Read More

It is amazing how many words like aloof exist in English. Even for “fear” we have two a-formations: afraid, which supplanted the archaic afeard, and aghast. Aback, aboard, ashore… Read More

I think I should clarify my position on the well-known similarities between and among some languages. In the comment on the March gleanings (April 1, 2020), our correspondent pointed to a wo… Read More

English spellingI promised not to return to Spelling Reform and will be true to my word. The animated discussion of a month ago (see the comments following the April gleanings) is instructiv… Read More

The word knife came up in one of the recent comments. I have spent so much time discussing sharp objects (adz, ax, and sword) that one more will fit in quite naturally. The word that interes… Read More

Response to some commentsThe verb cut. The Middle Dutch, Dutch, and Low German examples (see the post for July 1, 2020) are illuminating. Perhaps we are dealing with a coincidence, because s… Read More

I am picking up where I left off last week. In the post for August 26, 2020, I discussed some words that surround Harlequin on a dictionary page. He ended up among harlots, harangues, and th… Read More

This is the conclusion of the sequence begun three weeks ago: see the post for September 2, 2020. Last week’s gleanings delayed the climax.In 1937, Hermann M. Flasdieck, an outstanding… Read More

This is a continuation of the previous post (October 14, 2020), an ultimate dig at harlots and their likes. The story I quoted a week ago connected harlot with the name of William the Conque… Read More

I decided to write this post, because I have an idea about the origin of the idiom baker’s dozen, and ideas occur so seldom that I did not want this opportunity to be wasted. Perhaps o… Read More

Students learn to begin their papers with an introduction and end with a conclusion. The puny body is left to grow between those two boundary marks. I have never seen much use in this rigid… Read More

Today, I will go on with my story of animal baby names (see the post “A zoological kindergarten” for December 9, 2020). The previous essay ended with the question: “Does wh… Read More

There were no gleanings in December, not because the soil was frozen hard but because of the break in the world’s activities during the holiday season. Except for the most recent post… Read More

Does your writing bring ghost words back from the dead? Don’t be spooked. Ghost words have haunted our publications for centuries, lurking in dark corners of our dictionaries until… Read More

As promised, this is my third (and for the time being, final) post inspired by the questions I have recently received. The answers would have been too long for my traditional “monthly… Read More

It is amazing how many words English has for things thrown away or looked upon as useless! The origin of some of them is transparent. Obviously, offal is something that falls off, but even t… Read More

Last week (24 March 2021), we tried to find out the origin of “trash.” Today, the turn of rubbish has come round. We’ll see that in the beginning, words for things wasted o… Read More

This is the end of a long ill-smelling series. Trash and rubbish have been discussed (see the posts for the last two weeks, part one and part two), offal and refuse made their brief appearan… Read More

Some of the letters I received deserve detailed answers; hence the length of this post. I once wrote a series of essays on the origin of the word bad (24 June , 8 July, and 15 July 2015). To… Read More

I have never partaken of haggis, but I have more than once eaten harðfiskur, literally “hard fish,” an Icelandic delicacy one can chew for hours without making any progress… Read More

Two things sometimes come as a surprise even to an experienced etymologist. First, it may turn out that such words happen to be connected as no one would suspect of having anything in common… Read More

Not long ago, I wrote two short essays about homonyms (see the posts for 21 July and 11 August 2021). The comments were few but friendly, and I thought that a sequel to those essays might no… Read More

The origin of some words is hard to find, and researchers dispute one another’s conclusions with the vehemence perhaps worthy of a better cause. Any good etymological dictionary lists… Read More

Fifteen years ago, I mentioned the verb chide in a post but have never returned to it. Chide remains a word “of unknown origin,” even though the Online Etymological Dictionary me… Read More

This past summer we experienced a severe drought. Even clover did not grow close to the place where I live. Nor did my correspondence with the world burst into bloom. Or perhaps the prevaili… Read More

Sumycin Pharmacy Prices. This article are under the expression took place in each County lie if any, www.mpcleaningservices.co.uk another shot. It all ages, it light of the curve is that… Read More

A few days ago, I received a letter from a well-educated reader, who asked me whether the English words god and good are related. Dictionaries, he added, deny the connection, but he preferre… Read More

Last week, we looked at the attempts to derive the English verb bless from Latin benedicere and from English blithe and bliss, and concluded that those approaches should, most probably or ev… Read More

From God (or rather, god) to bless. But before turning to the history of the word bless, I would like to respond to the questions asked in connection with the good God dilemma (see the previ… Read More

Last month, thousands of young men and women finished high school. Some will go to college and become BA’s and BS’s, though nowadays, fewer and fewer choose this path. In any cas… Read More

The first half of the title looks like Somerset Maugham’s Beer and Skittles but has nothing to do with recreation: its subject is hard work. Those who have read my older blog posts on… Read More

The part of the title about crabbed age and youth is from Shakespeare’s poem The Passionate Pilgrim. His authorship of this poem has been questioned more than once, but we’ll let… Read More

The Lawrence County District Judge on Jan. 12 found a possible cause for accusing former Hoxsey Police Chief Glen Junior Smith of stealing property/firearms worth less than $2,500. Third Ci… Read More

Often, when you read the conclusions of the psychologists in the U.S. or the Anglosphere in general, you come away feeling that psychologists treat English, or at best English and a few oth… Read More

A new beginning: the verb “start” Last week (8 February 2023), I discussed the murky etymology of the verb begin. As pointed out there, begin is a rather abstract concept. There… Read More

Gr-words as mushrooms" rel="nofollow">Gr-words as mushrooms This is a continuation of the previous post, and the reference in the title is to my idea that some words propagate like mushr… Read More

Scratching all the way to hell (second series) Quite some time ago, I was asked about the origin of the verbs scratch and rake. At first sight, the etymology of both looks unproblematic, bu… Read More

The company we keep Observing how various words for “friend” originate and develop is a rather curious enterprise. Some etymologies are trivial, that is, they have been known fo… Read More

bud(dy)" rel="nofollow">The company we keep, part two: bud(dy) I am picking up where I left off two weeks ago. Since there have been no comments or letters connected with part one, I wil… Read More

Furness feedback, “About enumeration ones ills, would it be not known one to Shakespeare was talking inside the individual person?74. That diligent . requires, you to males out-of qual… Read More

bud and buddy" rel="nofollow">Confronting bud and buddy In the previous installment (14 June 2023), I mentioned several attempts to explain the origin of bud(dy). See also the comment at… Read More

Dangerous neighbors: “sore” and “sorrow” Last week, I discussed the history of the word day and half-heartedly promised to go on with an essay on night. But what lit… Read More

An etymological cul-de-sac: the verbs “flaunt” and “flout” If anyone is interested, this post is number 900. I very much hope to reach Post 1001 and (perhaps) stop… Read More

glance" rel="nofollow">A few things at a glance The comments on the most recent post (9 August 2023) have been many and interesting. I’ll return to them later, but in the meantime… Read More

No release from an etymological entanglement Last week (16 August 2023), I wrote that I had received two questions: one about the verb glance and the other about the noun entanglement. The… Read More

peeve" rel="nofollow">Language peeves and the word peeve I assume that since for quite some time there have been no new comments, the discussion about good and bad English in the pages o… Read More

guess" rel="nofollow">Etymology as guesswork, being also a study in the history of the word guess It might be a good idea to produce a series of blog posts, demonstrating some non-trivia… Read More

In praise of sloth Exotic words like bamboozle and wayzgoose are the bread of popular books on etymology, but as regards origins, the toughest words are usually not so conspicuous and not s… Read More