WordFixx

It's surprising just how much of our regular vocabulary is outdated or based on bad information.  "Tidal waves" (as we usually use the phrase) have nothing to do with the tides.  They are caused by a disturbance of the seafloor that causes a part of the ocean surface to rise or fall.  They can also be caused by avalanches that drop into a sea or shore, displacing a huge amount of water.  As time goes on, we seem to be retiring "tidal wave" in favor of the Japanese word "tsunami". But "tsunami" simply means "harbor wave" ... which also fails to describe the actual thing.  We've seen a lot of video in recent years showing these massive waves striking places that are not harbors.  Historically, it's true that they did enormous damage to Japanese harbors.  The word "tsunami" is still outdated and misleading. There's really no good word for these events.  They're not really just waves, either.  They are vast

George Carlin was a master of wordplay.  One of the bits of his that I hear quoted most often is under the subject of how confusing and arbitrary language can be: "Why do we park in the driveway, but drive on the parkway?" Without even looking it up, one can see that it's a matter of context, and a language where compound words are so easily made up and added to the vocabulary. From the context of one's home and yard, if you were to set aside one area where you can drive up and park, why not call it a "driveway"?  And if you're building a scenic highway (which might actually pass through a park), it's not a big stretch of the imagination to call it a "parkway".  It's only when the two examples of apparent opposites are put side-by-side that it seems crazy. It's amazing how many different modes of transport humans have invented, and most of them have their own "ways" for getting around.  There's the seaway, waterw

Word lore can pop up in unexpected places. I just saw the old Beatles film "A Hard Day's Night" again, and there's a scene where George Harrison describes a shirt as "grotty" (sounds like "grotto"), to which he quickly adds, "You know, grotesque.*" It's odd for a rock star to stop and give a definition of a slang word at a particular moment in time, so let's look into it. I had never made that association before, but in grade school, there was the word "grody" (rhymes with "brody") which when we were using it was clearly just a silly way of saying "gross." It even had the awful supersized variation: "grotacious." Now, "gross" itself is a very odd collision of ideas, meaning a specific amount (12 dozen), an overall total ("gross profit"), overweight, of low standing, unrefined, vulgar, offensive ... with all kinds of subtleties in phrases like "gross incompetenc

Our days of the week also have some hidden meanings in their names. They're actually quite odd. Sunday and Monday are named after the Sun and Moon. Those are no brainers. But the rest? Tuesday is named after the Norse god Tyr. Wednesday is named after the Germanic god Woden. Thursday is usually said to be named after the Norse god Thor, but an alternative is Thunor, an uncommon variation of Jupiter (Zeus). More detail here: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Thursday Friday is named after the Norse goddess Freya, or the Germanic goddess Frigg, who are nearly the same. Saturday is named after the Roman god Saturn, who was a god of agriculture in this sense.  It's fascinating how folklore finds its way into our life, through the backdoor, between the lines ... one could argue that these day names don't really mean these things anymore, but they can't entirely escape their origins either. Especially in poetry, you may find events happen on particu

Strangely, the most commonly used verb in any language - "to be" - is often highly irregular. A quick look in English: I am, you/they/we are, thou art, he/she is. Past tense: I/he/she was, you/they/we were. Past participle: been. Just like "to go," which I have already covered, this is a case of multiple verbs for similar things getting all mashed up together. It's so confusing, you can find etymologies that simply refer to the original verbs as the A-Root, the W-Root, the S-Root and the B-Root. The A-Root, from Old English aron, survives in am, are, and art. Some sources mix this in with the S-Root, but it seems a likely blend either way. The B-Root, from Old English beon, survives in be, been and being. The forms I beo, thou bist (still current in German), he/she bith, we/they beoth are gone. The S-Root, from Old English sindon, survives only in "is". We/they sind (still current in German) is gone.  The W-Root, from Old English wesan

In beginner's English grammar books you were probably told that "to go" is just a freak irregular verb with a past tense of "went." But that's not really correct. There were two verbs for "to go" in English for a long time: "to go" and "to wend." I go, you go, he goes ... I wend, you wend, he wends. Past tense: goed and went. Past perfect: gone and wended. Maybe "goed" sounded too much like "goad," so it just went away. In any case, the words battled it out over the centuries, and we ended up using all of the verb "to go," except for that one throwback ... "went." That's not the worst of it. Try figuring out "to be!"

The suffix -ology is a Latin one, meaning a study or branch of knowledge. It's getting a bit abused these days, crammed onto non-Latin words to make things sound smart. I'm sorry, but they just bother me. It's like mixing apples and oranges.  Gemology - the study and certification of gems. Maybe they think it's cute, because it looks like geology. I don't know. Ufology - the study of UFOs. Sorry, that's just annoying. These words were invented just to make things sound scientific. I realize that the Latin roots can be a bit obscure, and might seem antiquated. But I can't just call myself a "wordologist" and force people to accept the word, can I? Only time will tell which words survive. There is an odd exception: "Tautology" is not a study at all. A tautology is a vacuous and obvious repetition, like "brilliant genius". It comes from "tauto-" (the same) and suggests a case study in monotony. It also

Every 4th year, February gets an extra day, the 29th. This gives us a calendar year that's 365-1/4 days long. But how exactly is it a "leap year" if we make the year longer? How is that leaping over anything? It's more of a drag year, because it drags on for an extra day. This is a good example of how priorities have changed. The reason it's called a leap year is ... because it makes fixed festival days "leap" ahead one day in the week. The term goes back to Middle English. By the way, this calendar we use is called the Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII, who declared its use on Feb. 24, 1582. It replaced the older Julian calendar whose year was a little bit too long, and even skipped 10 days to try and get caught up. It's an interesting story. To be exact, our actual year is 365.242 days, and a leap year was defined as "every year divisible by 4 except for centenary years not divisible by 400", which does a good