Category: Feature
-
Pens, penance, and pancakes: the origin of shrove
Shrove, as in Shrove Tuesday, and the related word shrift, as in short shrift, ultimately derive from the Latin scrÄ«bere, “to write.” For Francophones and many speakers of American English, today is Mardi Gras, âFat Tuesday,â a day of gorging and gamboling before the solemn and abstemious Christian season of Lent. But a lot of other Anglophones will…
-
Beyond the etymological “pale”
Today, my wife and I are bidding farewell to Southern California to greet our new home: Dublin, Ireland. Weâll actually be staying in Oxford, England first until the Irish government finishes processing our work visas. (Nope, itâs not the sun, I’m sure youâre wondering: Iâm going to miss fish tacos the most. And family, of course.)…
-
What is the “chest” in “chestnut”?
I don’t know about you, but I primarily associate the word chestnut with that opening octave in “The Christmas Song”: “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…” Every holiday season, this melody, this first line, this first word, really gets stuck in my head. This year, with chestnut nipping at my brain, I found myself asking: what is the chest in chestnut? The origin…
-
“Lemurs” and “larvae”: creatures of the etymological night
Vampires, witches, demons, and zombies? The Halloween season spooks us with many ghouls and goblins, but you might want to watch out for two other creatures lurking in the etymological dark: lemur and larva. The origins of lemur and larvae Zoologically, lemurs and larvae have little in common, but etymologically, they have several interesting connections. First, both words were first…
Mashed Radish 