Category: Feature

• An etymological stroke of “genius”

  Over the weekend, President Trump took to Twitter to defend his sanity and intelligence: Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming…

  John Kelly

  January 9, 2018

  Feature

• An etymological “epiphany”

  You know those 12 Days of Christmas we’re always partridge-in-a-pear-treeing about? They end on January 5th, or Twelfth Night, when many celebrants end their yuletide festivities by taking down the decorations. As its name suggests, Twelfth Night is the 12th night after Christmas and the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, which many Christians…

  John Kelly

  January 5, 2018

  Feature

• Spelacchio, Yankee Swap, and Boxing Day: Some holiday etymologies

  Over on the Oxford Dictionaries blog, I’ve written some pieces that will get you in the holiday spirit. For my latest Weekly Word Watch, I featured the Italian word spelacchio: The official Christmas tree of the city of Rome, imported from the Italian Alps at a cost of over £42,000, has been shedding its needles,…

  John Kelly

  December 22, 2017

  Feature

• The etymological network of “net”

  Say the phrase the net today, and surely the first thing that springs to mind is the internet. It even sounds outdated, conjuring up fossil browsers like Netscape, as we mostly just refer to the technology as the internet or being online. Net does survive in the expression net neutrality, the principle that internet service…

  John Kelly

  December 18, 2017

  Feature

• From wedges to windfalls: the origin of “coin”

  In one of my recent Weekly Word Watches for the Oxford Dictionaries blog, I highlighted bitcoin, the cryptocurrency whose valuation continues to skyrocket. As I explain in the article, the bit in bitcoin – a coinage attributed to its mysterious creator(s) Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 – was shortened from binary digit in 1948. Binary digits…

  John Kelly

  December 8, 2017

  Feature