The word dungarees is a relic of the British colonial presence in India. Dungri was the name applied to a durable cotton cloth exported from India to England in the 1600s, and used to make sails and tents. Dungaree comes from the Marathi term...
“Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.” This may be a Jewish proverb, although its provenance is uncertain. In any case, it’s a reminder that while young people still have much to...
sliming n.— «The path to Academy Award victory, however, is beset with many dangers, quite apart from the pressures of walking the red carpet. As Slumdog has grown to be more and more of an Oscar contender, the murky Hollywood art of...
Grant shares a strange word from the fringes of English: mofussil. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Mofussil” Earlier, we were talking about words that caught us up short the first time we ran across them. Here’s...
shipset n.— «Last year, the aircraft division managed to increase the manufacture of “shipsets”—aviation parlance for a set of right and left hand doors—for the Airbus A320.» —“Civilian orders dominate HAL...
poorism n.— «Poverty tourism—sometimes known as “poorism”—did not originate in Mumbai (formerly Bombay). For years, tour operators have been escorting foreign visitors through Rio de Janeiro’s infamous favelas, with their drug...