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Strong Language
I’m extremely excited to share Strong Language, a new “sweary blog about swearing” masterminded and managed by James Harbeck (@sesquiotic) and Stan Carey (@stancarey). (Those two are tops; you should be following their work in its own right, to be sure.) Follow the project on Twitter, too: @stronglang. Strong Language has assembled an impressive and growing cast of contributors, from the indefatigable Read more.
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bus
Each day, millions of people hop on and off a Latin dative plural as they carry out their lives. They take the bus. Let’s ride its etymology to see where it stops. Bus As the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) records, bus is first attested as buss in 1832. The word is shortened from the Latin omnibus, literally meaning “for all.” Concerning its origin, the OED offers: the Read more.
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ciao, slave!
After a blogging break, I figured there’d be no better way to say “hello” than to say “goodbye.” Linguistically, the phenomenon is not uncommon, actually. Hawaiian has aloha and Hebrew has shalom, for instance. And Italian of course, has ciao, which has been widely taken up across different tongues as an informal and familiar greeting for “hi” and “bye.” This Read more.
Mashed Radish 