Category: Feature

• “Slur”: an etymology dragged in mud

  At a White House event yesterday honoring Navajo code talkers, President Trump called Senator Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas,” as he has on many past occasions. Native American leaders, among so many others, are rightly decrying the disparaging remarks as a racial slur, as it drags native peoples into the mud—and literally so, if we look to…

  John Kelly

  November 28, 2017

  Feature

• Reams of “ream”

  Sexual assault scandals, mass shootings, military coups, tax cuts for the rich, trophy elephants, the impending devastation of climate change, the looming threat of nuclear war—there are reams and reams of heavy news right now. So, I think we could use something that brings us all together. Sorry, I don’t have any puppy videos, but…

  John Kelly

  November 17, 2017

  Feature

• Persian pleasure gardens, the Christian afterlife, and tropical tax havens: the origins of “paradise”

  The 13.4 million-file leak called the Paradise Papers are exposing the offshore, tax-avoiding dealings by some of the world’s richest companies and people, from Facebook to the Queen of England. Boosted by alliteration and allusion to last year’s Panama Papers, the BBC explains the paradise name:  The Paradise Papers name was chosen because of the…

  John Kelly

  November 10, 2017

  Feature

• The cutthroat origin of “massacre”

  Another day, another mass shooting in the US. The latest massacre—by the latest man wielding an assault weapon—claimed the lives of 26 worshippers at a church in a small town in Texas. Today, as we try to make sense of another needless tragedy, let’s make sense of the etymology of this grisly word, massacre.

  John Kelly

  November 7, 2017

  Feature

• Taking “taxes” to the etymological task (repost)

  With House Republicans unveiling sweeping tax cuts in a bill this week, I figured it was a good time to repost this piece on the etymology of tax from 2014. Over three years later, I still find it incredible that tax comes from the same Latin root that gives us task, taste, and taxi.

  John Kelly

  November 3, 2017

  Feature, Repost