Tag: language

• taxes

  It’s Tax Day in the United States. In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and witty quotes about taxes. While attributed in this form to Benjamin Franklin, the earliest iteration goes to a Christopher Bullock in his 1716 The Cobler of Preston. (This is not to be confused with Charles…

  John Kelly

  April 15, 2014

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• on knock-knock jokes & word origins

  Before moving on to the second part of my citrus series, I want to take a break from specific etymologies to reflect on them as such. Last post, I ended on quite the corny pun: “Orange you glad I didn’t squeeze them all into one?” This, of course, evokes a classic lemon of a knock-knock…

  John Kelly

  July 30, 2013

  Uncategorized