Our society’s constant obsession with relationships and especially celebrity marriages—with their ups and downs, and often very salacious details—can lead us to wonder and ask big questions about the words we use to talk about love, commitment, and desire. While this isn’t People magazine or “Dear Abby,” perhaps we can use our natural curiosity as an excuse to look at a dilemma of language that is …
It’s one thing to make a typo on your resume, but we know of a worse kind of mistake: calling your partner the name of a previous paramour. Or perhaps you’re talking to your boss and out of your mouth pops an obscene word that rhymes with what you meant to say. These slips, of tongue, the keyboard, or the pen, are generally termed “Freudian,” …
Walking into a beautiful mosque, church, synagogue, or temple may inspire a familiar feeling of awe, but these places are not in any way interchangeable. Obviously, the purpose of these sacred spaces will depend on those who worship there, and the word origins of these terms are equally varied. Let’s examine these words, starting with mosque. What is a mosque? A mosque is “a Muslim …
Double or single scoop? Cone or cup? However you take it, all frozen desserts have one thing in common. Nothing tastes better on a summer afternoon than an ice-cold, sweet treat, and one of the most popular is frozen yogurt. Where does frozen yogurt get its name? Frozen yogurt is fairly new to the world of sweets. It was introduced in the 1970s under the …
Zedonk. Yes, this is for real. “The offspring of a zebra and a donkey.” Prepare yourself for an even larger dose of absurdity: there are plenty more zany names for unlikely crossbreeds, and we’ve collected a nonsensical herd of them. We don’t know if the baby zedonk, born in the state of Georgia about a week ago, has a name, but an Associated Press report notes that …
Sex, marriage, and the law. Always complicated. That’s why there are so many words to describe how two people (sometimes more) live and love together. Like polygamy. Do you remember the 2007 arrest of Warren Jeffs, a religious leader and polygamist on charges involving multiple marriages and underage girls? The case, and polygamy, are back in the news. The Utah Supreme Court reversed the charges against …
Ah, wedding season. The middle of the year is a popular time to tie the knot, but after it’s all over, the newly married couple needs a little time to relax. Enter the honeymoon. These days honeymoon can be a noun that describes the post-wedding vacation or an adjective used to describe the place where the newlyweds sleep during their vacation, as in the honeymoon …
As far as storms and hurricanes go, Bonnie wasn’t a huge threat. Wait — do you realize how strange it is to refer to a mass of air and water by name, let alone an apellation that reminds you of that neighbor who bakes really great chocolate chip cookies? Briefly, here’s how the names for storms are picked. The world is roughly divided into six major basins where storm …
If you find something that’s bigger than you thought was physically possible, how would you describe it? You start with what you already have, which is R136a1, the equivalent of a cosmic ZIP code. The R stands for Radcliffe Observatory, which located the star in the first place (long before anyone knew its immensity.) Massive isn’t the same thing as “big” in astronomy. Mass is …
Weed. Mary Jane. Chronic. There are dozens of slang synonyms for marijuana. But one of the strangest is the word pot. How did the word for a common kitchen instrument become slang for marijuana? The origin of pot has nothing to do with the culinary tool. The word came into use in America in the late 1930s. It is a shortening of the Spanish potiguaya …
It’s probably safe to assume that as long as humans have been speaking, we’ve been cussing and cursing. What can the connection between “curse,” “swear,” “cuss” and “profanity” tell us about all the words we aren’t supposed to say, yet say with great frequency? Cursing vs. cussing Placing a curse obviously isn’t the same as uttering curse words, but both concepts start with the Christian Church. …
As you munch on guacamole and chips, chew on the etymology of the humble avocado. Its many names are as wacky as the fruit is yummy. What is an alligator pear or a fertility fruit? A biologist calls it persea americana, but avocado derives from the Nahuatl word ahuacatl, which also refers to a certain part of the male anatomy that the fruit somewhat resembles. In …