From ship to shore

Sep 29, 2011 by

As mentioned in the previous posting, many words and expressions in English come from the naval slang. Some such expression have etymology that is fairly transparent as they refer to parts of the ship (e.g. steer clear of something...

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Posh: from the sea or from the gypsies?

Sep 29, 2011 by

In the previous posting, I mentioned the word posh, an adjective describing stylish items or members of the upper class, which came into the American lexicon from “across the pond”. But what is the origin of this word in...

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The whole story…

Sep 14, 2011 by

In several previous postings, I discussed the derivation of the Old Novgorod form KѢLЪ and its Modern Russian cognate CELYJ, especially in connection with the first consonant (/k/ vs/ /ts/). But what about its English cognate, whole...

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How can we know what an ancient text means?

Sep 14, 2011 by

I don’t usually post links to videos or other blogs, but this lecture by my friend and colleague Dr. Joel M. Hoffman is brilliant and well-worth watching! And it touches on the topic we’ve been exploring for some time...

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