The word conclave comes from Latin con- meaning “together” and clavis meaning “key.” A gathering known as a conclave occurs in “a room that can be locked.” From the same root comes enclave, from the idea of “enclosing,” as well as clavier, a...
Janet in Tucson, Arizona, wonders about a phrase she once saw on a business card: Fortune Favors the Audacious. It’s a translation of a saying that goes back to antiquity, with many variations, including “fortune favors the brave” and “fortune...
Laura Maiklem’s book Mudlark: In Search of London’s Past Along the River Thames (Bookshop| Amazon) is a charming memoir about the rewards of scavenging for bits of history along the River Thames. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A...
In an earlier episode, Dennis from New Smyrna Beach, Florida, was having trouble recalling a word that denotes the interval between the end of an event or of someone’s life and the death of the last person that has a meaningful memory of it. We had...
There’s a reason why we have both capital and lowercase letters. As the alphabet went from the Phoenicians to the Greeks to the Romans, letters took on new sounds, and the need to write quickly brought about the introduction of lowercase versions...
If you’re making a salary, be grateful that it’s paid out in dollars and not salt. In antiquity, salt was a valuable commodity, and the term salary comes from the Latin salarium, the portions of salt paid to Roman soldiers. This is part of a...