Jonah, a music teacher, in Baltimore, Maryland, shares a funny story about a student who misunderstood his question about the capital of his home state. That left Jonah wondering about the difference between the words capital and capitol. The former goes back to Latin caput, meaning “head” and by extension, the “most important,” “main,” or “great,” giving us terms like capital letter and capital as in “money,” originally, “the first part of a loan,” or in Latin, pars capitalis. Capitol spelled with an O, is used specifically for “the building in which a legislative body meets,” and derives from the Capitoline Hill in Rome, where a magnificent temple of Jupiter once stood. This is part of a complete episode.
What makes a great first line of a book? How do the best authors put together an initial sentence that draws you in and makes you want to read more? We’re talking about the openings of such novels as George Orwell’s 1984...
To slip someone a mickey means to doctor a drink and give it to an unwitting recipient. The phrase goes back to Mickey Finn of the Lone Star Saloon in Chicago, who in the late 19th century was notorious for drugging certain customers and relieving...
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