Roots of Happiness: 100 Words for Joy and Hope From Britain’s Most-Loved Word Expert by Susie Dent
This joyous collection of 100 positive words and their origins will show readers young and old just how wonderful language can be - and how you can use your words to make the world a happier place.
Happy #ValentinesDay! It’s time for us to ruin the mood, as we do every year, by posting our video about the word “Cuckold”, and how it connects to Valentine’s Day (via Chaucer) https://youtu.be/uk6gsB0Iijc
It’s #InternationalDarwinDay! Ever wondered about the history of the word for Darwin’s most influential idea? Our video on the etymology of Evolution goes into the linguistic, scientific, and cultural connections to Darwin’s theory. https://youtu.be/kOK6kB9ytIo
How am I supposed to get anything done when there are tempting rabbit holes like this everywhere?!?
"Chalant"
Etymology
A notional opposite and coincidentally accurate back-formation from nonchalant, itself from Old French non- + chalant (“concerning, bothering”), but interpreting non- as later English "non".
"Orange peel theory," "girl hobby" and "polywork" are some of the terms that have emerged on TikTok — not because they're helpful phrases to understand new concepts, but because people have invented them in order to go viral. Vox's Rebecca Jennings looks into these bizarre and annoying coinages and asks when the backlash will begin.
We see the word "Ruthless" used (mostly to mean merciless or cruel, like a tyrant) but we rarely see "Ruthful".
Also, it's interesting that thesauri mainly list Sympathetic and Compassionate as antonyms of Ruthless. Likewise, Ruthless is generally not listed as the main antonym of Ruthful.
Guess it's just one of those things where usage sense and frequency has drifted w time. Nothing to rue though. 😉
What terms can stand in for LGBTQIA+? It really is a mouthful (mindful?). I see #gay and #queer used as catch-alls, but I've also seen people take umbrage with that. Can someone help me out with more #words here?
I'm reading a book about the history of spelling (Spell it Out) and it's more interesting than you'd think.
Did you know that arctic was originally pronounced "artic", but the pron changed after some wise guys added the 'c' to make it look more like its Latin source?
Also, that ghost gained its 'h' entirely because Flemish typesetters preferred the look of the Flemish word "gheest"?
And apparently honey was once spelled "huni", but that looked like a collection of incomprehensible short downward strokes in cursive script, so it was changed to something more visually distinctive.
I really wonder about what's in the minds of people who write things like, "that sweater color compliments her hair." Like, do they not know the words "complement" and that it derives from complete?
It's oddly worse to me than malapropisms like "nip it in the butt," though that one is egregious and tells me the speaker has no idea about plant growth stages.