An episode from 2006 Today we can predict the future with elaborate weather forecasting computer programs, and by getting Ivy League educated economists on the radio. But in the bad old days people who wanted an accurate picture of the days to come woul

This episode circa April 2006 I checked the New York Times to see how people were using the word "maelstrom." To be honest I needed to check the spelling first. There was a story on the war in Iraq and the maelstrom in Bagdad; another about a family

From April 2006 I hate luggage. My theory of travel includes a thin suitcase and a fat wallet. Consequently I never travel. The word "luggage" appears first in 1597 and one of the first citations is Shakespeare' Henry IV where the King's son Hal asks

First posted April 2006 In English the word "pupa" is the stage of life of an insect.  For example between being a caterpillar and being a butterfly the stage where this kind of insect morphs is called its pupal stage. This is the idea of Carl Linneas

From 2006 I did a random search of the New York Times to see how people were using the word "nemesis" The Los Angeles Lakers Kobe Bryant is quoted as saying the third quarter of their games this season has been their nemesis. Kristanna Loken, is said

From 2006 The other day on the blog The Oxford Etymologist Anatoly Liberman just happened to mention in passing that the word "window" evolved from an earlier pair of words "wind" and "eye." So a window is the space in the wall where the wind looks in;

From 2006 In fact I want to talk about both cement and concrete and explore what is different about them. The word cement seems to have come into Middle English from Old French and ultimately from Latin.  The earliest ancestor word in Latin has a meani

Yesterday I talked about the cold soup vichyssoise and quoted its inventor Louis Diat as saying "there are five elements: earth, air, fire, water and garlic." Sponsor: Hold your meetings online for just $49 a month Try GoToM

It was a hot and humid day recently and I decided that some of my favorite cold soup would be just the ticket. But when I announced to my kids the kind of soup that I wanted to make they began pining for another cold soup that their grandmother makes; vic

The word pest arrived in English in the late 1400s in the saliva of a flea. The flea we might now regard as a pest, and the rat upon which the flea rode we would also classify as a pest, but back then, the word pest didn't apply to either. Pest is ultim