word history

Hours, Minutes, Seconds

Niall O'Donnell 11 Comments

I had another of those putting-two-and-two-together moments today. I was trying to elicit the word second from a student. This was in the context of saying a date. This is often quite tricky for French speakers. In French you refer to a date as, for example, le vingt decembre (today’s date). If you were to literally translate this into English, it would be the twenty December, as opposed to the twentieth of December. French speakers often therefore take a while to get used to adding the the and of, and using the ordinal form of the number.

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Train

Niall O'Donnell 10 Comments

Recently, I’ve noticed, while looking at my blog statistics (it’s very addictive), that someone has been getting here by searching for the word train. Sometimes, it’s quite obvious which posts search terms bring people to. Other times, it’s not so clear. At first I thought that it was bringing people to this post, somewhat related to trains. But then, not really related either. I was curious, so I checked what posts people had read the days someone had searched for train.

It turns out it brought them to this post, about the term gravy train. And then I thought that if they were really looking for some information about the word train, that post would’t really help them at all. And then, I began to think that train is actually quite an interesting word…

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Placeholders and Little Chiefs: The Meanings of Military Ranks

Niall O'Donnell 11 Comments

Using the phrase in general today, it struck me that the word general is of course a military rank. As I began to think about the meaning of general as a military term, I thought it might be interesting to look at the origins of military ranks.

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Hedgehogs, Urchins, and Beatles

Niall O'Donnell 4 Comments

Hedgehogs are cute, aren’t they? With their little spines, and their noses, and their pink bellies when they’re being subjected to the 15th take of a video their owner’s making of them having a bath in the hopes it goes viral.

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Almost…Almost…!!

Niall O'Donnell 4 Comments

While searching for a bathroom in a hospital in Liège this morning (I’m OK, I was donating blood, and I’m writing this on Friday afternoon, so I’m not in Cologne yet), I began to become slightly concerned, as one was hard to find, and I really needed to go. I began to think I’d have to ask someone for directions, and as I do when I know in advance what I’ll need to say in a certain situation, I quickly went through what I’d say in French:

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Shall we Repair to the Drawing Room?

Niall O'Donnell 15 Comments

I think about words quite a lot (you may not be surprised). I had an interesting example of this last night.

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Pandemonium!

Niall O'Donnell 10 Comments

I passed a poster for an event called Pandemonium this morning (I’m not sure what the event was, so I guess it’s not a very effective poster). That’s not a word I’ve given much attention to in the past, I thought, but looking at it now, does it mean what I think it means?

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