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Dos niños: Christmas, weather, and nursery words
What do El Niño and Christmas have in common? It’s not just the unseasonable weather much of the US is experiencing this holiday, though my drought-stricken state of California is getting a much needed White Christmas in the Sierras. No, this weather pattern and Christian holiday also share a crib, etymologically speaking. El Niño Spanish speakers will Read more.
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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 Read more.
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In a “galaxy”… so, so close to home
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… From its opening lines to its ticket lines, Star Wars, whose latest episode, The Force Awakens, opened this week, is as epic as its interstellar setting. But the etymology of this galaxy, it turns out, is so, so close to home. Galaxy English first gazes at the word galaxy, so to speak, late in Read more.
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Making an “agreement”: a gratifying etymology
This past weekend, nearly 200 nations reached the Paris Agreement, a landmark effort to combat climate change. Now there’s a pleasing word these days: agreement. It’s yet more pleasing if we consider its etymology, and one we should be quite grateful for, too. Agreement It’s apt, I suppose, that the historic climate agreement was negotiated in Paris: agreement is borrowed from the French agrement. English’s agreement is Read more.
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Gerbils (and etymology) will bring us all together
For this post, I thought about writing on the etymology of demagogue or bigotry, which have been much in the ether lately, thanks especially to Donald Trump. But I thought twice, important as these words are right now. I thought twice because I wanted to write on something a bit more positive and, well, fun than many of Read more.
Mashed Radish 