Yasha, who grew up speaking Russian, recalls phrase used to comfort a child after a small mishap like a skinned knee. The phrase translates as “It will heal in time for the wedding,” and Yasha had assumed it was solely Slavic. So he was surprised to...
Look up the verb comfort in the Oxford English Dictionary and you’ll see that in the 13th century, this word meant “to strengthen.” It comes from Latin fortis meaning “strong,” the source of fort, fortify, and forte. This is part of a complete...
A 1952 thank-you note from then recently widowed Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother is a moving description of how grief “bangs one about until one is senseless,” and the comfort that the gift of a book can provide. This is part of a complete episode...
Seven-year-old Everett from Tallahassee, Florida, wants to know why we refer to a scrape or other minor injury as a boo-boo. Such reduplication of words and syllables is common in baby talk used to soothe a child. Also, boo-boo sounds a little like...
Creature comforts, meaning “material comforts,” may sound like a newfangled term, but it goes back at least as far as the 1640s. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Those Old Familiar Creature Comforts” The other day, somebody...
As a noun, respair means “the return of hope after a period of despair.” As a verb, respair means “to have hope again.” Although both forms are rare and obsolete, they seem ripe for reviving. Respair is among dozens of uplifting terms collected in...
