A few years back, after the release of his short film “Runaway,” rap impresario Kanye West found himself busy quashing rumors that he practices devil worship and is part of the notorious Illuminati. The gossip was sparked by references in “Runaway” to that elusive organization. West expressed confusion about the Illuminati. Is it connected to supposed devil worship? What does the word signify? The Illuminati refers to several different groups. The …
What is cacography? To answer this question, let’s look at one of our favorite authors: Jane Austen. She was known for her clean and eloquent prose and giving us such classics as Persuasion and Mansfield Park. But it seems the great novelist’s editor likely played a bigger role in Austen’s literary pursuits then previously thought. In fact, it seems that Austen may have been guilty of …
On December 21, 1817, the poet John Keats wrote a letter to his brother in which he expressed and named a quality of human existence that’s tricky to articulate. Keats’ formulation has been adopted by philosophers, poets, and others ever since. How did Keats make up a new concept? Keats wanted to name our ability to simultaneously acknowledge the unpredictable nature of events and conduct ourselves with confidence and …
Koreans eat it with almost every meal. When the country’s first astronauts went into space, portions of this food went with them. Each year, South Koreans consume more than two million tons of it. The food is called kimchi, or gimchi, kimchee, or kim chee. It is a fermented, spicy cabbage dish and the most common banchan, or side dish in traditional Korean cuisine. There …
Behind the simplest words one can often find the most compelling questions. Take for example, dog. Canis familiaris, also known as dog, is essentially a domesticated wolf. The dog is a member of the Canidae family, like the jackal and the fox. The word dog presents a mystery, though: linguists have not identified its roots, nor any English words related to it. The same goes for …
Thanks to the eagle eyes of a Texan voter, the absentee ballot this election season in Atascosa County will not feature the flag of Chile. You can see the source of confusion below, but first, how did the Chilean flag end up on a Texan ballot? As you will see, the flags of the Latin American country and the U.S. state are remarkably similar. Both …
Each year in October, the Nobel Prize committee in Stockholm announces what has become a sort of gold medal for science, literature, and politics. Six annual winners receive a sum usually worth millions of dollars in addition to oodles of prestige. After you read this, you will always associate the namesake of the prize with the word boom. Why the Nobel story is explosive Alfred Nobel was …
Arunachal Pradesh is a state in the far northeast corner of India. It shares a border with Burma, Bhutan, and China. In the state there’s a district called East Kameng, a community of villages that have had few interactions with the outside world. And in that community, there are several thousand people who speak a language called Aka. Within the community of Aka speakers, however, …
Every so often, a headline or breaking news story warns of the dangers of “toxic sludge.” Recently, the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board warned of a toxic sludge threatening San Diego County and composed of “storm water, sewage, and garbage.” In 2018, toxic green sludge “gushed” onto a Detroit highway, endangering nearby municipal water supplies. In 2010, a tragic event occurred in Hungary, …
What language do these words come from: ouch-cay, appy-hay, and ender-tay? If you guessed Pig Latin, you’re correct. What is Pig Latin? Pig Latin is not actually a language but a language game that children (and some adults) use to speak “in code.” Pig Latin words are formed by altering words in English. Here’s how it works: First, pick any English word. We’ll use dictionary. …
Whether you start your morning with coffee or tea—it’s part of who you are, but how much do you know about either caffeinated beverage? Where did tea come from? Tea comes from the Chinese d’a, and transformed into tea or ch’a depending on where the drink migrated. All tea comes from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant and the six basic varieties are white, yellow, …
Recently, the Detroit Lions’ Jahvid Best was forced out of a football game due to turf toe — Grade 2 turf toe, to be exact. It’s a funky name for what can become an significant injury for professional athletes. First of all, turf toe gets its name because athletes who play on artificial turf face the highest risk of suffering from it. This means football players, rugby …
