The word “ornery” was originally a dialectal contraction of the word “ordinary.” Originally, “ornery” simply meant ordinary, or commonplace, but eventually evolved into meaning naughty or cantankerous.
Old people love that word.
And they love calling kids “ornery.”
Old person: “Hey, little kid. Santa won’t come this year, because you’ve been too ordinary!”
Classic old person.
æ was a single letter in the Old English alphabet, and was known as the “ashtree.” Nowadays, it’s commonly referred to as the “ash.”
Because it’s definitely commonly referred to…..
Why skivvies is slang for underwear is a little unclear, however, it was originally considered nautical slang. An earlier skivvy/skivey was also used in London as a slang word for a “female domestic servant.”
In Iran, “female domestic servant” is slang for “wife.”
Starboard comes from the Old English steorbord, which literally means the side on which the boat is steered.
Sometimes etymology is what it is. Kinda lame. And self-evident.
In Inuit language, “igloo” or iglu means “house.” The term isn’t restricted to snow houses.
Because they have a million words for snow, but only one word for house apparently.
Also, I have a lot of trouble when deciding whether to use italics or quotation marks. You’d think I’d have that down by now.
A couple days ago, I mentioned how Martin Van Buren was the first US President to be born an American citizen.
Though, his patriotism is all a facade. Van Buren is the only* US President not to have spoken English as his first language. He spoke Dutch.
*Depending on who you ask, Obama grew up speaking “Muslim”…
Recently I have heard people use the expression “jump on the bandwagon” a lot (thanks to the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs). Literally a bandwagon was a wagon that carried the band in a parade, circus, or other similarly silly event. Supposedly, the idiom, “to jump on the bandwagon,” was coined in 1848 when Dan Rice, a clown, used his bandwagon to attract attention for his political campaign. Other politicians saw the attention he was getting and also wanted to “jump on the bandwagon.”
This seems kind of odd to me. You would think a clown aspiring to be a politician would try to downplay his clownliness. Not ride around on a wagon blasting clown music.
Clownliness.
Etymologically, “debit” comes from the Latin debitum, meaning “something owed.” “Credit” comes from creditum, meaning “something entrusted” (from credere “to trust, to believe”).
Well, that was pretty straightforward.
P.S. Saying “PIN number” is redundant (personal identification number number). I hope the guy I always see at Quiktrip reads this. I should probably translate this post into Urdu.
The word “derive” derives from the Latin de rivus, meaning “from a stream.”
Yes, I am running out of words.
Paronomasia is the fancy word for a pun. A pun is intentional wordplay, unlike a malapropism (see yesterday’s post). An eggcorn is in the same family as the pun and malapropism, but differs slightly from both. One example of an eggcorn would be mistakenly saying “old-timers’ disease,” instead of “Alzheimer’s disease.” But unlike a malapropism where the new sentence is nonsensical, an eggcorn still makes a little sense, as is the case with Alzheimer’s… The linguistic example, of course. Not the actual disease…
A malapropism is the substitution of a word with a similar-sounding, incorrect word. For example, people always say “for all intensive purposes.” This doesn’t make any sense. It’s supposed to be “all intents and purposes.”
If anyone hears me using a malapropism, just cut my head off. I know cutting my head off seems extreme, but I give you full permission to decaffeinate me.
A “minced oath” is an expression based on a profanity that has been changed to be more acceptable. Like “shoot” or “darn” or “frick.”
I wish I didn’t have to use minced oaths. I feel like such a friggin’ sissy having to wussyfoot my way around these words. Gosh dang. It gets me so ticked off. Society overemphasizes the wrongness of these words to the point where it increases their notoriety. If we stopped treating them as taboo, they wouldn’t be taboo. And people wouldn’t care. It makes me mad as heck. FUDDDDDDDDGGGGGGE.
The plastic tips on the end of shoelaces are called aglets, from the Old French aiguillette, which is a diminutive form of the French word for needle. Before the invention of buttons, aglets were very helpful in fastening clothes.
Before the invention of buttons????
Buttons have been around for thousands and thousands of years, but apparently more for decoration than functionality.
Functional buttons used to close or fasten clothes first appeared in Germany in the 13th century.
When you start with an exciting fact about aglets and then move to buttons, you know it’s going to be a good day. No ifs, Ags, or Butts.
First (and worst) pun using “aglets” and “buttons.”
