[Preface: scores of versions of the Wawa logo here. Take a look before plunging in to the post.] Brother Joe told me the good news that Wawa stores are coming to my home state of Ohio! Wawa's are great! Anyone who went to Penn would know this because their stores are near the campus and […]
I've always pronounced it as rhyming with "thanks", but Wiktionary makes it sound more like "monks" in German, Dutch, and UK English. "Manx" is the English exonym for the language whose endonym "is Gaelg/Gailck, which shares the same etymology as the word 'Gaelic', as do the endonyms of its sister languages Irish (Gaeilge; Gaoluinn, Gaedhlag […]
The word rein, which the OED glosses as "A long narrow strap, frequently of leather, attached to the bridle or bit of a horse or other animal on either side of the head and used by a rider or driver to control and guide the animal", was apparently borrowed into English from French a millennium […]
I played college basketball for Dartmouth for four years. That means I had ample opportunity to play in Penn's hallowed Palestra. All of the Ivy League schools had unique, distinctive gymnasia, and they remain sharply etched in my mind. But the Palestra was something else altogether, as though it belonged in a different league, a […]
As promised, here are the additional paragraphs from Vandermeersch on the roots of rationality in the earliest levels of Sinitic script. They come from John Lagerwey who will be awarded the 3rd “Prix Vandermeersch” on November 18. John explains: I don’t have the time right now to give the full answer JPL deserves, but I […]
jin defang asked: New expression, or at least new to me: soup sandwich. All that meant to me was an option at Panera, which didn’t fit the context. So I asked the last person who used it, Fred, and this is his reply. (I also didn’t know what FUBAR meant but that was on google). […]
Next time you hear or use the expression "scot-free", don't think that it has anything to do with Scots language or Scot people. I have always avoided using this expression because I didn't want to disparage a whole people. But "scot-free" is such a useful phrase that I wished I could use it with a […]
After uttering that affirmation in response to Peter Grubtal's wish (here) that "the [Butkara] stupa doesn't get destroyed like many other Buddhist relics in that area" — thinking of the Taliban and Bamiyan — I worried that what I said may have been too Christian and Jewish. Upon reflection, however, I realized that nothing could […]
Makes your head spin. Takes so many different shapes and serves so many different purposes: Historically, a kiosk (from Persian kūshk) was a small garden pavilion open on some or all sides common in Persia, the Indian subcontinent, and in the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century onward. Today, several examples of this type of […]
As native speakers of English, we have a direct, non-analytical understanding of the differences among "look", "see", and "watch", the three main verbs for expressing visual perception. The first indicates that we have a purposive gaze at / toward / for something; the second that our sight focuses on what we were looking for; and […]
A couple of days ago, we had occasion to come to grips with the word "garble": "Please do not feel confused" (8/19/22). This led Kent McKeever to write as follows: Your recent use of "garble" has prompted me to pass on something I recently stumbled on. I have been poking at the digital files of […]
For a good example of how music and musical instruments, together with the words to designate them, could travel long distances in antiquity, we have already taken a look at the case of the shawm: "The shawm and its eastern cousins" (11/16/15). Since writing that post nearly seven years ago, a few more interesting facts […]
Many of us first learned about the Balkan red pepper sauce / relish / spread called "ajvar" in this post: "Bosnian menu" (7/28/22). Simplicissimus contributed a nice comment in which it was averred that the BCS (Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian) "word ‘ajvar’ and the English word ‘caviar’ both derive from the same etymon, the Ottoman Turkish word ‘havyar’ […]