Today marks the 77th anniversary of the Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting—a milestone not only for UFO enthusiasts but also for lexicographers everywhere, as it gave the English language two fascinating new terms: flying saucer and pelicanist. For those unfamiliar, Kenneth Arnold was a businessman and aviator who, in 1947, claimed …
A tatterdemalion is a fellow whose clothes are tattered and torn. It is the same as a tatter-wallop, a ragabash, or a flabergudgion; and, given the threadbare state of modern fashion, it is an eminently useful word. Tatterdemalion should even be immediately comprehensible to the uninitiated because everybody knows what …
Those lucky readers who have invested in the property market will be unsurprised to discover that a mortgage is, literally, a pledge to the death. The idea is that a mortgage is a gage, or pledge, that can die in one of two ways. Either you pay the whole debt …
The fingers are the digits and are therefore used for counting. Thus did digits become numbers and when information is stored in numbers it becomes digital. The Old English names for the fingers are much more fun than those which have been more recently fangled. The index finger was once …
Elope is a lovely word, especially if you leap into an elopement with an interloper. There are a whole bunch of lope-words spread around the languages of Northern Europe and they all mean pretty much the same thing: a stride, a run, a jump, a leap, a bound. There was …
Ever pondered the meaning of “louche” while sipping Campari in bed? While your initial luxury guess was off the mark, the word’s history is far more fascinating than you might imagine. Forget pirates with eye patches! Louche’s roots lie in the Latin “luscus,” meaning one-eyed. Its French descendant, “louche,” initially …
Ah, the great chocolate bar mystery: Milky Way vs. Galaxy. Same creamy centre, different celestial names. But why? Were the marketing teams locked in a galactic naming rights battle? Turns out, it’s not quite so dramatic. Most languages across Europe share the “Milky Way” moniker, reflecting the ancient Greek “galaxias …
Ghoulish is a word much beloved of the tabloid press. Anything can be ghoulish, from serial killers to a bad round of golf, or as the Daily Express would put it: “one of the most ghoulish Masters bloodbaths in history.” Ghoul, or ghul, is an Arabic word and was a …
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 …
Batman is, of course, the name for a military officer’s servant. The term derives from the old word bat meaning a packsaddle. In America, where they’re far more logical about such things, the equivalent position is referred to as a dog-robber. Batman is, of course, a unit of measurement found …
