The noun piss, meaning “urine” and the verb piss, “to urinate,” may sound more crass than pee. But it wasn’t always that way. In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, piss appears in the book of Isaiah and pisseth...
Was English spelling standardized before the advent of the printing press? No, but there were some significant periods in history where spelling became a little more fixed. Among them are the replacing of the Runic alphabet with the Roman alphabet...
Joan grew up in Yorkshire, England, then moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. There she was surprised to hear some people use the term evening instead of afternoon to refer to “the period between noon and 5 p.m.” The word evening is used that way in...
Gabby in San Diego asks about the origin of smitten, a word she likes enough to want it on a vanity license plate. Smitten is the past participle of smite, the old verb meaning “to strike” or “to beat,” familiar from the King James Bible. The...
What’s the common thread that connects the phrases pour out your heart, from time to time, fell flat on his face, the skin of my teeth, and the root of the matter? They all come from or were popularized by the King James Bible, first published...
The so-called Wicked Bible is a 1631 version of the King James, printed by Robert Barker and Matin Lucas. This particular Bible is so-called because the printers somehow managed to leave out the word not in the commandment against adultery. They...