25 Fun English Adjectives: Lexical Suggestions for Untying a Tied Tongue
Most people are all too familiar with the tip-of-the-tongue sensation of trying to express what seems almost inexpressible. Perhaps you’ve felt the frustration of having the perfect word just beyond reach. Whether it’s some quality, sentiment, observation, or emotion, some descriptions are hard to come by. To help Beyond Words readers overcome this unfortunate quandary, […]
A Brief History of English Punctuation
The familiar marks that punctuate text – the periods, commas, semicolons, and so forth – have not always added their pauses and emphases throughout the history of the written word. Many of the texts that we now read with ease gained these marks centuries after being written with no punctuation at all. Additionally, punctuation rules […]
Arousing Word Origins:The Story of the World’s Sexiest Philologist
Most of us are familiar with the different types of learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. A distinctive sort of style, however, is the hallmark of internet phenomenon Marina Orlova — she uses sex appeal to teach etymology. Orlova, a 28-year-old Russian immigrant, is a philologist (a kind of linguist who specializes in the historical […]
Morse Code . _ . | _ _ _ | _ . _ . | _ . _ | …
As you might have guessed from the colorful dots and dashes above the Google search bar today, it’s Samuel Morse’s birthday. Morse code was created by the American painter and inventor in the early 19th century. Morse perfected his electromagnetic telegraph, and by 1836 transmitted the first long-distance message from Washington to Baltimore, which playfully […]
Accent Program Information: The Hows and Whys of Accent Reduction
For people who speak English as a second language, several pitfalls may stand in the way of communicating fluently with native speakers. Even with a firm grasp of English grammar and a full arsenal of vocabulary, correct native-level pronunciation remains an obstacle for many language learners. For people whose professions demand a very high level […]
Valentine’s Day Etymology
VALENTINE The practice of choosing a special person to be one’s valentine on February 14 began in the mid-14th century as an English and French courtly custom. Valentine cards may have originated with Saint Valentine himself, a Roman priest who purportedly continued to perform marriages in secret after they were outlawed by Emperor Claudius II […]
The Forbidden Fruit: Etymology of Apple
The forbidden fruit of the biblical Garden of Eden has taken on so much significance throughout the centuries that almost all cultures have a wide variety of expressions and sayings that deal with apples. They may encourage health: An apple a day keeps the doctor away Una mela al giorno toglie il medico di torno […]
10 Idioms in Translation
They pepper our daily speech and thread themselves through most every conversation, but idiomatic expressions, sayings, and colloquialisms can be the most difficult part of any language to translate. Because idioms take root in a nation’s customs, history, religion, and even geography, they may become case-specific and their literal definitions seem, oftentimes, nonsensical. The translator’s […]
20 Rarely Used Words to Fascinate and Delight
Many words have gone out of fashion because they have lost their utility and become inapplicable in the 21st century. We no longer make reference to our baldrics because it would be difficult to find someone who still carries a bag of horns and swords slung over one shoulder. Other rare or infrequently-used words pertain […]
Etymology of Yule
This derivative of the Old Norse word jol made its way into Old English as geol, originally designating a two-month midwinter feast. Like many holidays, European conversion to Christianity rendered it a religious festival and the word geol – and later “Yule” – came to represent the 12-day feast of the Nativity, which begins tonight […]