Tag: pronunciation
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“Minneapolis” means “Waterfall City”
A schoolmaster combined Dakota and Greek words to propose an official name for the city in the 1850s.
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The bemusing etymological muse of “calliope”
The calliope makes a music perhaps out of tune with its literal roots.
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debt
English spelling can be a mess. Take the word debt, making its own mess in Greece as we’ve seen, which features a b we write but don’t say. Whence the b? Debt As it appears in the English of the late 14th century, debt is recorded as dete. No b, for the word comes to English from the Old French dette. No b, as…
Mashed Radish 