Janet in Montgomery, Alabama, reports that a day after she had surgery on her hand, the wound burst open, and a doctor noted that her wound dehisced. She’s used to hearing dehisce used in botany to mean the splitting of a plant structure to release its contents. Dehisce derives from a Latin term that means “to gape” or “to yawn.” There are lots of similarly poetic medical terms. Tibia, Latin for “flute,” was applied to the similarly straight leg bone. The Latin term fulgur, which means “lightning,” produced fulguration or “cautery,” used to excise a tumor. Plethora, meaning “a multitude of things,” was originally a medical term referring to “an excess of blood or other bodily fluids.” Your biceps muscle, which has two parts, takes its name from Latin for “two-headed,” and the word muscle itself comes from Latin musculus, literally “little mouse,” a reference to a muscle’s resemblance to a little rodent twitching beneath the skin. 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...
Subscribe to the fantastic A Way with Words newsletter!
Martha and Grant send occasional messages with language headlines, event announcements, linguistic tidbits, and episode reminders. It’s a great way to stay in touch with what’s happening with the show.
