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farang
From the earthy incense perfuming the red dirt roads of Siem Reap to the noodles frying in the sizzling streets of Bangkok, my wife and I had an incredible time in our all-too-quick visit to Cambodia and Thailand. Some of my favorite moments, though, involved our attempts at the rich and complex Khmer and Thai languages. Read more.
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Buddha, eBay, & ombudsmen
My wife and I will soon be wat-eyed and pad-tied on our upcoming trip to Cambodia and Thailand. In preparing for these trips, I consulted the cultural, the cartographic, the culinary, the commercial, the communicational–and, of main concern here at the Mashed Radish, the cognates. Thailand predominantly practices Buddhism, as you probably well know. The religion is founded in the Read more.
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corned
While you might not find many Irish people eating it, many Americans will be plating up corned beef and cabbage to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day today. The particular reasons for this are complicated and fascinating, as Shaylyn Esposito explained in 2013 on Smithsonian.com. Traditions vary with time, space, and circumstance, of course–and so do words, as is Read more.
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mushing
March is well underway, and for many folks across the United States, the snow is finally melting, though turning into a dirty, sloppy mush as it goes. Up in Alaska, the Iditarod is also underway, but with its own kind of mush–and march, as we’ll see in the origin of this term for traveling through the Read more.
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Background checks: everyday words with legal origins
I have a new post up on the OxfordWords blog, “Background checks: everyday words with legal origins.” From nude to innuendo, a great number of common words have a surprisingly legal record. Here’s my bit on mayhem: Dating back to the 15th century, mayhem historically denoted a criminal offense. As the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines it, mayhem was ‘the infliction of physical injury on a person, so Read more.
Mashed Radish 