During the late 19th and early 20th century, thousands of volunteers helped crowdsource the Oxford English Dictionary. This venerable reference work includes citations sent in by inventors, eccentrics, scientists and educators, an Arctic explorer β...
In the 19th century, the Oxford English Dictionary was a bit like the Wikipedia of its day, in that much of its information was crowdsourced, gathered by thousands of volunteers. Linguist and lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie tells the stories of many of...
We have books for language-lovers and recommendations for history buffs. β’ How did the word boondoggle come to denote a wasteful project? The answer involves the Boy Scouts, a baby, a craft project, and a city council meeting. β’ Instead of reversing...
Depending on its mood, a turkey’s skin can shift from red to blue to white, due to changes in the blood vessels between bundles of collagen. That phenomenon is reflected in the Japanese term for “turkey,” shichimencho (δΈι’ι³₯), which...
In English, you might describe something easy to do as a cinch or a piece of cake. Several other languages employ tasty metaphors to convey a similar idea. In Brazilian Portuguese, you something easy can be described with an idiom that translates as...
The Flavor Thesaurus: A Compendium of Pairings, Recipes and Ideas for the Creative Cook (Bookshop|Amazon) by Niki Segnit features delicious writing about combinations of foods and spices to inspire culinary creativity. This is part of a complete...