Happy Wednesday, Word Nerds! I think it must be time for another round of What Do You Think It Means? this week, and I have a smashing word for you all: Ostrobogulous (oh-stra-BOG-yew-lus)
Hiya, Word Nerds! So glad you popped by today. Many of you may be aware that 31 October 2017 marks 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. Each evening this month, our family has listened to a short podcast on a hero (or heroine) of the Protestant Reformation from the series Here We Stand, produced by Desiring God.
Welcome, Word Nerds! I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with today’s word, although if you’re a reader of historical novels, particularly those set during the late 1700s and early 1800s, chances are you’ve come across it. The word in question is bluestocking.
Welcome Word Nerds! Last week, in one of the book launch teams I’m on, we were given the task of describing ourselves using three letters—QRF—and one of the team members described herself as quixotic. That led to the inevitable question, “What does quixotic mean?”—and to my associated thought: “What a great idea for a Word Nerd post!” Before we get into that, however, there’s the little matter of pronunciation. The term quixotic is derived from the character Don Quixote (pronounced don key-OH-tay) created by Miguel de Cervantes in his early 17th Century novel El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Nobleman Mister Quixote
Wednesday is here again, Word Nerds! It’s been several weeks since we’ve played What Do You Think It Means, so I thought it must be about time for another round this week. And the word I have for you today is cacoethes (kak-oh-EE-theez). So, here are your definition choices: A) An urge to do something inadvisable. B) A state of complete relaxation. C) The ability to project one’s voice. D) A food coma. So, tell me. What do you think it means? And if you’re feeling extra creative, give me a sentence to go with it. As always, the answer will be in next
Happy Wednesday to you all! If you read my Top Ten Tuesday post yesterday, you’ll know why the word dork has been on my mind this week. I’ve been considering adorkable characters—characters who are dorky in an adorable way. And of course, that led me to wondering about where the word dork came from in the first place. It’s a word of fairly recent invention (1960s), and its original intent was almost certainly to insult (considering it seems to have also referred to a certain part of the male anatomy). It was applied to someone who was socially awkward, but didn’t necessarily carry the
Welcome to the middle of the week, Word Nerds! I started out today on an innocent quest to discover why American-English has named that little dot at the end of a sentence a period, while British- (and Australian-) English prefers the term full stop. Turns out I should have packed a lunch! One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was knee-deep in the history of punctuation itself. Talk about a grammarian’s heaven! There’s far too much for me to share here, but if you’re interested, the BBC article The Mysterious Origins of Punctuation is a great place to
“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” If you’ve always thought this line was uttered by a forlorn maiden looking for her love, you aren’t alone. And it’s a logical conclusion to draw, right? I mean, it has ‘where’ right there in the word. Some of you, like me, may have had that mistaken assumption corrected years ago, and know that wherefore actually means ‘why?’ or ‘for what reason?’ Juliet is actually lamenting the fact that Romeo is a Montague, the sworn enemy of the Capulets—that age old rhetorical ‘why?!’ we utter when we feel we’ve been dealt a cruel hand. Knowing