Q: Should one officiate a wedding or officiate at a wedding? Or is either fine? Using it as a transitive verb sounds odd to me. A: The verb “officiate” has been used both transitively (with a direct object, as in “officiate the wedding”) and intransitively (without the object, as in “officiate at the wedding”) since […]
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Q: You often quote examples of writing from Anglo-Saxon times to illustrate the history of a usage. What is the earliest example of English writing that you know of? A: You’ve asked what seems to be a simple question, but the answer is complicated. It depends on what you consider writing and how you determine […]
Q: I’m curious when the phrase “left for dead” became common usage. Why is the phrase not “left to die”? I saw the “for dead” version recently in an article and I began wondering. A: The expression “leave for dead” first appeared in Anglo-Saxon times and has been used regularly since then to mean abandon […]
Q: Can you suss the pronunciation of “wash”? I’m from central Illinois and I forced myself as an adult to pronounce it “wawsh” instead of the colloquial “warsh.” A: In American English, the word “wash” is usually pronounced “wawsh” or “wahsh” (wɔʃ or wɑʃ in the International Phonetic Alphabet), according to the Oxford English Dictionary. […]
Q: Can you shed any light on the origin of the (mainly) Australian phrase “wouldn’t have a bar of it,” especially what “bar” is doing in there? A: The expression “not to stand [or “have” or “want”] a bar of something” first appeared in Australian English in the early 20th century, according to Green’s Dictionary of […]
Q: Have you come across the word “chumbolone”? It’s a new one for me. I found it on John Kass’s website. He was a columnist for the Chicago Tribune and now writes a lot of angry screeds about the state of everything. A: It was unknown to us, too. The rare slang term “chumbolone” was […]
Q: Why do I see the word “preternatural” all the time, especially in The New York Times? I don’t see it elsewhere. What’s the story? I had to look it up! A: The adjective “preternatural” (extraordinary, unnatural, supernatural) dates from the late 16th century. It was quite common in the 1700s and 1800s, then gradually […]
Q: James Joyce mentions “The Lass of Aughrim” at the end of “The Dead.” I looked the song up online, but was puzzled by the use of “will” here: “Oh Gregory, don’t you remember, / In my father’s hall. / When you had your will of me? / And that was the worst of all.” […]
Q: I’m not sure if this is all over the South or only in Kentucky, but people here use “like” to mean “lack.” Just the other day I heard a baker say of her cupcakes in the oven, “They still like some time.” Do you have anything to say about this usage? A: The use […]
Q: Can you please tell us the rules for using the suffixes “-tion,” “-sion,” and “-cion”? Very Interested, Busy and Confused Teachers. A: English borrowed all three endings from French in the Middle Ages, but they ultimately come from the same word fragment in Latin. So etymologically they’re three different spellings of the same term. […]
Q: Charitable giving is often characterized as “giving back,” which has a connotation of paying something owed. My wife and I make substantial donations. I think of this as freely giving, not paying a debt. A: We’ve also made quite a few charitable donations over the years, and done many hours of volunteer work. And like […]
Q: Do you have information on the origin of the phrase “don’t sweat the small stuff”? I didn’t find a convincing answer with Google search and ChatGPT. Any light you might be able to shed on the subject would be appreciated! A: As far as we can tell, the slang expression “don’t sweat the small stuff” […]
Q: I have a question about how suffixes are chosen. Specifically, why did the noun/verb “impact” turn into an adjective by adding “-ful” instead of “-ive”? A: You’ll be surprised to hear that both “impactive” and “impactful” can be found in standard dictionaries. Merriam-Webster, for example, defines “impactive” as “having an impact or marked effect,” […]
Q: You wrote recently about the increasing use of exclamation points. When did this overused punctuation mark first appear and who was responsible for it? A: The exclamation point or exclamation mark first appeared in Medieval Latin in the 14th century, but its parentage is somewhat uncertain. It was originally called a puncto exclamativus (exclamation point) or puncto admirativus (admiration […]
Q: I recently encountered the word “bezel” while playing Wordle. When I looked it up, several definitions mentioned the word “bevel,” which I’m more familiar with. Do these two words come from similar places, or did they evolve separately to mean similar things? A: We’ve seen no evidence that “bezel” and “bevel” are etymologically related. […]
Q: In Danger Calling, a 1931 mystery by Patricia Wentworth, it’s said that an obsessive bibliophile “will turn into one of those long, flat, grey unpleasant insects which live in the bindings of old books.” Are those insects the source of the word “bookworm”? A: Yes, “bookworm” originated by joining “book” with “worm” used in […]
Q: As a retiree, I often check out the website Ask a Manager to marvel at what goes on in the workplace these days. A post from a Brit described a job recruiter as a “typical gob on a stick.” I’m not familiar with the expression, but the poster was using it playfully, not snidely. […]
Q: I’ve long been curious about words that are spelled alike except for a silent “e” at the end: “dot”-“dote,” “fat”-“fate,” “hat”-“hate,” “not”-“note,” “win”-“wine,” etc. I suppose their etymology must be different. Why is their orthography so similar? A: Your supposition is correct! None of those pairs are related etymologically. Their orthographic similarities are coincidental. […]
Q: I was looking up some Hindi words and noticed that “randi” is a derogatory term for a “woman of ill repute.” I assume it’s the source of the English word “randy,” probably as a result of Britain’s involvement in India. A: English has borrowed many words from Hindi (“bungalow,” “cot,” “dinghy,” “loot,” “shampoo,” “thug,” […]
Because of the holiday, we’re publishing our usual Monday post on Wednesday. In case you missed it, check out our Dec. 4, 2023 post about the origins of the terms “Hanukkah” and “Christmas.” Merry Christmas, Pat and Stewart
Q: “Wicked,” which used to mean evil only a few decades ago, now also seems to mean cool, mischievous, or so bad it’s good. How did it get these polar opposite connotations? A: This phenomenon you’re noticing is an example of the loss or reduction of meaning in a word, but the weakening of “wicked” […]
Q: How did the expression “dog days” change from meaning the hottest time of the year to a period of sluggishness or stagnation? A: When “dog days” first appeared in English in the 16th century, it referred to the hottest part of summer in the Northern hemisphere, a period once considered unhealthy and evil. Because […]
Q: Why don’t we spell it “Honica” instead of “Hanukkah”? When a word is adopted into English from a non-Latin language, wouldn’t the change be toward the closest pronunciation? What else would influence the re-spelling? A: The English name for Hanukkah has been spelled many ways over the years, just as the English name for […]
Q: I’m an old movie buff who likes to research some of the forgotten usages in pre-1950 movies. One usage I’ve noticed is “stopping” at a hotel (or a friend’s home or whatever) where today we would say “staying.” When did this change? A: The use of “stopping” for “staying” isn’t quite so dead as […]
Q: I don’t know if you care about older columns, but you may want to update your 2011 item about “cahoot.” It seems silly to say, as your source does, that this Western Americanism descends from French. Many (most?) Westernisms come from Mexican Spanish. A: The term “cahoot” first appeared in the American Southeast in […]
Q: Sometimes in books set in the 1920s and ’30s, mainly in Agatha Christie’s books, I’ll see a reference to a maid wearing a “print dress,” but the dress actually seems to be a solid color. Can you shed any light on this? A: As far as we can tell, the term “print dress” has […]
Q: I’ve always assumed that the expression “purple haze” (a variety of marijuana) comes from the 1967 Jimi Hendrix song “Purple Haze.” But I recently saw the phrase in Booth Tarkington’s 1918 novel The Magnificent Ambersons and I can’t tell what it means there. A: For hundreds of years, the expression “purple haze” has been used literally to describe […]
Q: Since both “sight” and “site” can refer to a place, why do we use the first one, not the second, in the term “sightseeing”? A: The word “sight” in the sense of something worth seeing is derived from a prehistoric Germanic term for “to see.” It appeared in Old English hundreds of years before […]
Q: Is it my imagination or has “journey” become a ubiquitous term for going mentally or spiritually between points A and B? Is this one more example of making ordinary things seem precious, special, and a bit sanctimonious? I cringe when I hear it but I am a dinosaur way behind the times. A: Yes, […]
Q: I’m seeing a lot of exclamation points in greetings (“Good Morning!” … “Hello!”) and in expressing gratitude (“Thanks!” or “Thanks!!!”). Is there an overuse of exclamation points? I have a feeling it’s generational, the younger you are the more you use them. Sure would love your opinion. A: We can’t tell you definitively that […]
Q: I’m researching Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and came upon your 2022 posting on the use of “ph” as “f” in classical imports. I assume the “ph” in “Calphurnia” (Caesar’s wife) was pronounced as “p,” not “f,” in 1599, but I want a scholarly source to cite. Can you help? A: The “ph” of “Calphurnia” in The Tragedy of Julius […]
Q: In the 1940 movie of Pride and Prejudice, the phrase “upon my word” is used repeatedly to mean “I can’t believe what I just heard.” How did those three words amount to a statement of incredulity? A: It’s been a while since we saw the 1940 film of Pride and Prejudice, with Greer Garson and […]
Q: How did the word “beef” come to mean a complaint? A: The use of “beef” in the sense of a complaint or a grievance first appeared in American English as a verb in the late 19th century and as a noun at the beginning of the 20th century. However, the source of the usage […]
Q: I assume “chintzy” (gaudy, cheap, trashy) is derived from “chintz” (the multicolored cotton fabric). But chintz isn’t necessarily gaudy, cheap, or trashy. How did “chintzy” get its negative sense? A: You’re right that the adjective “chintzy” comes from the name of the usually glazed printed cotton fabric known as “chintz,” which isn’t particularly inexpensive […]
Q: I’m curious about this use of “which” in a US Supreme Court opinion from April 30, 1934: “Upon the submission of the cause the appellant made a motion to amend its assignments of error, which motion is now granted.” I assume “which” is used here to avoid ambiguity. Why isn’t it used that way now? […]
