What is a mondegreen? Have you ever heard someone sing the wrong lyrics to a song? Maybe a child gave the nursery rhyme “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” a new meaning by replacing the line “life is but a dream” with “life’s a butter dream.” Or maybe you’ve unironically belted out “Excuse me while I kiss this guy,” instead of Jimi Hendrix’s intended lyrics, “Excuse me …
by Rachel Bradley Ah, childhood, those halcyon days when you chewed on a stuffed Mr. Snuffleupagus and cruised the driveway in your foot-pedaled convertible. Childhood was also the time when, hopefully, you learned how to peepee—with your wee wee, weenie, peenie, winkey, giney, or jay-jay. Ring any bells? Those goofy names remind us that childhood is also when our private parts are often given cutesy …
What makes something a “real” language? For most of us, real language is the language we speak and the languages that large groups of other people speak. You may not know how to speak French, for instance, but many other people do, and it’s an official language of many countries, so clearly it must be “real.” But, what about different dialects of languages, regional languages, …
From college admissions to carbon emissions, it seems society these days is facing a myriad of challenges … or is it myriad challenges? Thanks, myriad. As if we don’t have enough to deal with. Most of us have heard of the word myriad … but can you use it in a sentence? Well, we’re going help make at least one thing simpler and get to the bottom of this …
Is root beer the world’s most oddly named carbonated beverage … we don’t know, that award might go to 7-up, but we’re going to explore the naming of this soft drink regardless. What, after all, is the root in root beer? The roots of root in root beer The ingredient in root beer that primarily gives the beverage its distinctive flavor is sassafras, which is “the root …
Compliment and complement are commonly confused terms because they’re pronounced alike and originally shared some meanings. But over time, they’ve become separate words with entirely different definitions. What does complement mean? Complement with an E is the older of the two terms. Its noun sense has been around in English since the 1300s. The term derives from the Latin complēmentum, meaning “something that completes.” So, that means if …
You would not be wrong if you interchange loan and lend—they do in fact mean the same thing in most instance. The words loan and loaned are the present and past tenses of to loan. Lend and lent are the present and past tenses of to lend. As verbs, loan and lend are often used interchangeably. For example, “A bank loans people money to buy a home. …
Few words are as fun to say as onomatopoeia, but what the heck does it mean? Despite its complex look and sound, onomatopoeia actually has a simple function in the English language. It’s defined as “the formation of a word, as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent.” To put it simply, it’s a word …
Traditionally, the word ninja is defined as “a member of a feudal Japanese society of mercenary agents, highly trained in martial arts and stealth (ninjutsu), who were hired for covert purposes ranging from espionage to sabotage and assassination.” These ninjas have captured the Western pop culture imagination since at least the 1960s, when the word was borrowed into English. Since then, ninja has expanded to describe “a …
When two words have the same meaning, we call them synonyms. When two words have different meanings but people use them interchangeably, we write articles about what those words actually mean. Take gender and sex. While people substitute one for the other on the regular, their meaning and usage are significantly—and consequentially—different. Because we’re most often talking about human beings when we use these terms, …
by Ashley Austrew Every election prompts arguments about which candidate is the most “electable.” The word electable seems self-explanatory. Technically, it means “capable of, or having a reasonable chance of being elected.” But, what are we really talking about when we say that someone is electable? The history of electable The first recorded use of electable was in the late 1800s, and the idea has been at …
It used to be that when we spoke of allies, it was most likely in a military sense, referring to countries formally banded together, usually by treaty, to fight against their enemies. Today, though, the word is used more broadly. What does ally mean today? An ally, ultimately from a Latin verb meaning “to bind to,” is used to describe “someone who supports disenfranchised and underrepresented groups …
