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.
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
If someone’s got melon, it means they’re smart. The expression most likely arose because of the resemblance between a melon and a human head. Several other foods are associated with having brains, including a cabbage, a gourd, and even a...
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