‘six of one and half a dozen of the other’

26th February 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

denotes a situation in which the alternatives are considered equivalent—first recorded, as ‘six of the one and half a dozen of the other’, on 24th April 1790 in the journal of Ralph Clark, a British naval officer—synonym: ‘(as) broad as long’

the curious history of ‘Quorn’ (meat substitute)

13th February 2018.Reading time 10 minutes.

The name ‘Quorn’ was first registered as a trademark—for certain edible products other than meat substitutes—by the Quorn Specialities Company of Leicester, England, in 1914. The meat substitute was subsequently developed by the successors of this company.

How sports gave ‘rocket science’ its figurative meaning.

9th February 2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

The literal meaning of ‘rocket science’ (USA, 1930) is the science of rockets and rocket propulsion—in the 1980s, in connexion with sports, it came to be used ironically as a generic term for anything requiring a high level of intelligence or expertise.

‘Atlantic’ originally referred to Mount Atlas in North Africa.

10th January 2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

‘Atlantic’ originally referred to Mount Atlas in North Africa, on which the heavens were fabled to rest; it was hence applied to the sea near the western shore of Africa, and afterwards extended to the whole ocean lying between Europe and Africa on the east and America on the west.

from the trenches of WWI: ‘cootie’ (‘body louse’)

3rd January 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

from army use on the Western Front during World War One: ‘cootie’, ‘body louse’, ‘cooty’, ‘infested with lice’, ‘coot’, ‘louse’, probably ultimately refer to the aquatic bird called ‘coot’, reputed to be lice-infested

the changing identities of the doryphore

27th December 2017.Reading time 12 minutes.

Greek ‘δορυϕόρος’ (‘doruphόros’) meant ‘spearman’; in French, ‘doryphore’ denotes the Colorado beetle and the German occupying forces during WWII; in English, it denotes a pedantic and annoyingly persistent critic.

folk-etymological origin of ‘squirrel’

21st December 2017.Reading time 6 minutes.

Greek ‘skíouros’, ultimate origin of ‘squirrel’: folk-etymologically interpreted as meaning ‘shadow-tailed’ because when the animal sits erect, it raises its tail up against its back and over its head as if to shade itself

origin of ‘captcha’

29th November 2017.Reading time 7 minutes.

early 21st century—acronym from ‘Completely Automatic Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart’, with punning allusion to ‘capture’ and ‘gotcha’

‘ladybird’: the Virgin Mary’s beetle

26th November 2017.Reading time 4 minutes.

The ladybird was so named on account of its seven spots, which were popularly believed to symbolise the seven sorrows of the Virgin Mary.

the creation of the word ‘folklore’

24th November 2017.Reading time 8 minutes.

The word ‘folklore’ was coined in 1846 by the British author William John Thoms, inspired by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s anthology of German fairy tales.