Charlotte from Princeton, Kentucky, wonders: What’s the difference between a spider web and a cobweb? There’s a bit of semantic differentiation between the two: A cobweb is usually an old spider web, while a spider web that’s not old may still have a tenant. The cob- in cobweb comes from Old English coppe, which means “spider” and comes from an old root that means “head,” because a spider looks like little more than a head. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (Bookshop|Amazon) Bilbo Baggins tries to distract some spiders by singing a song with the lines “Attercop! Attercop! Down you drop!” The -cop in attercop comes from the same root as the cob- in cobweb. This is part of a complete episode.
The cardboard cylinder left after the last sheet of toilet, tissue, or wrapping paper comes off the roll has inspired families to make up a lot of names for the tube or the sounds you can make with it. These include oh-ah, oh-ah, drit-drit, dah-dah...
A native Texan says his Canadian wife teases him about his use of hitten for a past participle, as in You have hitten every green light instead of You have hit every green light. Charles Mackay’s 1888 work, A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch, does...
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