A hundred years ago, suffragists lobbied to win women the right to vote. Linguistically speaking, though, suffrage isn’t about “suffering.” It’s from a Latin word that involves voting. Plus: military cadences often include...
Ever wonder what medieval England looked and sounded like? In Old English, the word hord meant “treasure” and your wordhord was the treasure of words locked up inside you. A delightful new book uses the language of that period to create...
In Mexico, echar un coyotito — literally, “throw a little coyote” — means “to take a short nap.” In Venezuela, it’s more common to talk about a quick snooze using echar un zorrito, the word zorrito being a diminutive...
Diminutive suffixes, Donnie for Don, change the meaning of a name to something smaller, cuter, or sweeter. This is part of a complete episode.
flymph n.— «Leafing through this little book, I was struck by the naturalness of the flies, some of which resembled the modern, soft-hackle “flymph” patterns popularized by Vernon S. Hidy. The blackened hooks were mostly sizes...
pollito n.— «A section of Greyhound’s “Transportation of Illegal Aliens” guidelines that deals with how to identify an immigrant smuggler cautions em ployees to be on the lookout for people who use the Spanish word pollito...