WordFixx

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!"