I saw a film last night.. It was about Charles Darwin and at one point he was talking about how he hadn’t enjoyed training as a doctor: ‘All those wretched patients,’ he said. And there was a flicker in my mind. Did he mean by this that the patients were …
I am so happy, as I have discovered that my trousers are kingly. That’s not to say that they appear regal to the naked eye, but etymologically they should sit upon a throne because they are made of corduroy. The OED has two alternative etymologies for corduroy: either it is …
The 16th century Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim was a very clever man. With such a long name he was known as Paracelsus . No one knows why. Paracelsus invented words. Sometimes he invented words for things that existed: he named zinc zinc because it forms into jagged crystals …
Imagine someone saying they have “no qualms” about something. It evokes a sense of ease, a lack of hesitation. But did you know this seemingly tame word once carried a much darker meaning? Brace yourselves, language lovers, because “qualm” has quite the dramatic tale to tell. In the rough and …
Another story on a seemingly non-descript part of London On Carting Lane near the five star Savoy Hotel is a Webb Patent sewer gas lamp, which was invented in the late19th Century by Joseph Webb as a way to draw off bad smells from the underground sewer system and as …
The English language is full of fascinating etymological oddities, and the word “stationery” is no exception. While many people may assume that the word is related to the concept of being stationary, its origins actually lie in the medieval trade of bookselling. In medieval times, most books were sold by …
