All In a Word
Graduation is a solemn event – so why funny hats?How many ways can one graduate? The word has many meanings beyond the typical pomp and circumstance associated with colleges each spring.
Deprecate? Depreciate? Let’s call the whole thing off.I have assumed deprecate meant “to belittle.” As it turns out, I am far from the first person to have been baffled by this word.
More than a letter divides ‘languish’ from ‘anguish’It may seem that these two words must be related, but etymologically they are more like opposites than cousins.
They’re ‘cows’ in the field, but ‘beef’ on the tableHow did a single animal get one field name and an entirely different food name? To answer that question, our grammar columnist takes a page from “Ivanhoe.”
The melodious origin of ‘swan’ and ‘sonata’How is a swan like a sonata? This sounds like the setup for a joke, but it’s more of an etymological riddle.
Parler français? What makes a fluent speaker.For many language learners, fluency feels impossible. But being fluent is more about familiarity and confidence in writing and speaking than perfection.
If life exists on other planets, we’ll find the wordsAs scientists entertain the possibility of life on other planets, astrobiologists have had to rethink their vocabulary.
Conversation starter: Why we mirror speechWhen people adapt their style of speech (or texting) to that of their conversational partners, it’s what linguists call accommodation.
Why shanties may be just what we landlubbers needSea shanties like Wellerman have gone viral on TikTok recently. But where did they originate, and why are they suddenly popular now?
What does the ‘filibuster’ have to do with pirates?Etymologically, filibuster has more to do with conflict than with consensus. Fittingly, conflict is what filibusters tend to create in legislatures.
What to call the locals in New Zealand and IndianaSometimes there are rough rules for forming demonyms, terms that denote the inhabitants of a particular place. But in irregular cases, there are none.
What to call people from Wisconsin or DubaiSome demonyms – or words “used to denote a person who inhabits or is native to a particular place” – are obvious, but others are impossible to guess.
Learning to live with ‘learnings’Learnings is often seen as pretentious and useless business jargon, but its cousin teachings is pretty unobjectionable. What’s the difference?
When politicians resort to ‘whataboutism’Whataboutism is an old rhetorical technique. If Mary accuses John of something, John responds by accusing Mary of something: “What about ... ?”
Can Americans reclaim the term ‘patriot’?It’s easy to define patriot – one who loves his or her country, per Merriam-Webster – but harder to agree on what that love should entail.
Animal traits ‘dog’ the English languageMany animal names have undergone verbification, or turned from nouns into verbs. To parrot is to “repeat by rote” without understanding, for example.
Blursday, doomscrolling, and the words of 2020The year 2020 gave rise to so many new words that the editors at Oxford Languages couldn’t pick just one word of the year (WOTY).
‘Bring home the bacon’ and other tasty idiomsNo one knows how bacon became associated with money, but etymologists have fun speculating. Possible answers are county fairs and English traditions.
When is the proof in the pudding, anyway?The strange phrase – the clue is in the custard? – is just one of many odd and interesting food idioms in English.
Why the British are firmly set on ‘pudding’
