I have happened upon a number of interesting word-related thingies over the past week or so. As it’s been a while since I posted anything, I’ll share them with you here.
New words(?)
Merriam-Webster, regarded by many as the US dictionary has published its new edition, and has added some 100 new words. Naturally, some of these [...]

A kindly English teacher gave me a copy of “Strine” when I was young – presumably to get me to sit down and/or shut up, as many of my teachers found it pleasing to do. I had completely forgotten about it, until the other day, when it just popped back into my head. In the [...]

Thanks to Mme Joad, I don’t have to write a post today (well, apart from this introductory piece). She sent me a really amusing email – one of those that gets passed around one’s mailing list. As luck would have it, the subject was new words. The Washington Post has a section – on line [...]

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Having given Greek words a good airing recently, it’s time to take a look at those wacky Romans. The civilization that brought us viticulture, road networks, aqueducts and underfloor heating also fostered the [...]

I have a confession to make. There is a reason why this word appears in my list of words. It’s not that I can find out much about the etymology of the word, nor is it because it’s particularly fascinating. More of which later.
The word is of dubious origin – another piece of dead-end research [...]