Tag: language
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asylum
Last post, I considered the origin of refugee. The word comes from Latin, as we saw, though so many of the actual refugees are fleeing Syria and other Middle Eastern and North African countries to seek asylum in Europe. Here, let’s seek the origin of asylum. Asylum In my experience, asylum evokes two phrases in the English language: political asylum and insane or lunatic asylum. The latter…
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refugee
According to the UN, more than 4 million refugees have fled Syria, among other countries, for neighboring countries and Europe. The humanitarian crisis is complicated, dramatic, and tragic, as we so sadly observed in the toddler who washed ashore a Turkish beach. As the international community figures out how to help the refugees, some debate has flared…
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disgruntled
We witnessed yet another horrific shooting this week. This time, a “disgruntled former employee,” as many news outlets have been describing him, gunned down two journalists during a live broadcast in Virginia. Disgruntled. To me, a disgruntled employee is a fast-food worker who spits into a burger after one too many lunch rushes – not a mass shooter.…
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cotton
Last week, Donald Trump’s hot air inspired our look into bombast, where, for all of his bluster and braggadocio, we ultimately discovered the soft padding of cotton. They say all politics is local, but the etymology of cotton is global. Cotton Cotton cropped up in Middle English (coton) during the late 14th century, taking the word from the French coton. The Oxford English…
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pissants & culprits
When I tell people I blog about etymology, the study of word origins, they often confuse it with entomology, the study of insects. For my latest contribution to Strong Language, this confusion can for once be forgiven: I follow the trail of pissant back to its etymological anthill. It turns out to be a bit stinky there. A…
Mashed Radish 