Might ‘may’ kill ‘might’?
In recent years the distinction between may and might in the present tense has collapsed
The Sex Worker of Babylon
The first usage of the term dates back to the New York Times in 1971
What does it mean to go ‘stir crazy’?
Only now I discover my assumptions about that phrase were wrong
Can you gaslight a whole minority?
I fear gaslight is dangerously close to meaning ‘disagree with us’ or ‘suggest that we are mistaken’
Where did ‘taking a knee’ come from?
The football tactic is also known as the genuflect offense
How ‘odd’ became normal
Odd is Scandinavian in origin, Viking if you like
How ‘furlough’ became mainstream
Ben Jonson spelt it vorloff in recognition of its Dutch origin
Why ‘housewife’ is no more demeaning than ‘husband’
‘Housewife’ meaning ‘woman in charge of a household’ was also sometimes pronounced ‘husif’. By the 16th century it was worn down to ‘hussy’
What do elbows have to do with fighting coronavirus?
Digging up reliable etymologies takes a lot of elbow grease
We’ve been pansexual for a while now
Like ‘television’, ‘pansexuality’ is a bastard form, founded half on a Greek word and half on a Latin one
What is a ‘tergiversation’?
The Latin for ‘back’ is ‘tergum’
The link between politics and moisturizer
With some surprise I found reset has been in use since the early 17th century
The origins of ‘whilst’
It started off by displaying what is called the adverbial genitive
Who really invented the word ‘posh’?
People prefer memorable tales, especially those involving acronyms, to the truth
How to define a dog
The variousness of dogs has ever been a leitmotif of dictionary discussions
