Tag: French
-
curfew
This past Sunday, Baltimore’s mayor lifted the curfew she placed on the city in face of the unrest that followed Freddie Gray’s funeral. The tragic death of Freddie Gray, who later died from injuries sustained while in police custody, sparked fire, in some cases literal ones, over racial inequality and police brutality in the community there, as we’ve…
-
errand & racy
Last week, we ran the etymological race. We saw the word was connected to error, which goes back to the Latin verb “to wander,” among other meanings. This made me wonder, an errand involves some kind of wandering about, does it not? And for that matter, something racy, something “risqué” and “spirited,” surely suggests the action and speed of running, no? Etymologies are a…
-
gyrocopter
This week, Florida mailman Doug Hughes landed a gyrocopter on the lawn of the US Capitol in a bizarre act of protest against the corrupting influence of money in politics. The incident has compelled many questions, not the least of which is: What’s a gyrocopter? I’ll leave the technical explanation of this rotorcraft to the experts, but let’s…
-
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…
Mashed Radish 