Emily in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is married to a native Dutch speaker, who points out that they buy groceries in a store, so why doesn’t grocery denote just one of those items and not the store where they’re sold? Originally, the French word grosserie referred to “wholesale goods”; it’s a relative of English gross, meaning “large” or “a large quantity.” French grosserie eventually led to English grocer, “the seller of those goods.” Later, grocery was applied the profession of selling such items. Three centuries later, grocery came to refer to the store itself, and in the early 20th century, people began using the word groceries to refer to the items being sold from a grocery. The word groceries is what’s called a plurale tantem, which refers to words that exist mainly in the plural form, such as scissors, pants, and eyeglasses. This is part of a complete episode.
A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers...
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