History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Fun for Friday: Interesting Etymology

| March 15, 2024

Looking for some fun facts to share at your next awkward icebreaker? How about the etymology of the word “awkward”? Find that and fourteen other words in this article about interesting word origins!  

Fun for Friday: Greek Words for Love

| February 9, 2024

I haven’t done an etymology post in a while for Fun for Friday, so maybe it’s time to bring those posts back into rotation! This week, I’ve got an article about the eight ancient Greek words for love! Perfect as we approach Valentine’s Day! Whatever kind of love you have in your life, there’s an […]

Fun for Friday: Etymology and Spelling

| October 18, 2019

Ever wondered why English has such unusual spellings when it comes to some words? Some of it can be blamed on etymology, and others can be blamed on false etymology. This article talks about the origins of the English language dictionary and how etymology and false etymology impacted spelling. It’s a fascinating read, and lots […]

Fun For Friday: A Huge List of Word Roots

| September 20, 2019

For all of the etymology nerds out there (and I count myself among you), check out this page of word roots. It will tell you a ton about prefixes that often get tacked on to words to change their meaning, but it goes back to the roots of those prefixes. It also breaks down which […]

Fun for Friday: The Canons of Etymology

| July 19, 2019

When you run across a word that’s really interesting, but you can’t find anything about its etymology, what do you do? Check out these seven canons of etymology for some ideas on how to approach it! While the internet provides etymologies for plenty of words, sometimes it’s fun to try to sort one out yourself, […]

Fun for Friday: Etymologies of Food, Beverages, and Pants

| June 7, 2019

So many English words are derived from words from other languages. Things like cappuccino make sense–we know that’s an Italian word when we see it. But jeans? You’d think that’s one of the most quintessentially American words there is. Guess again. It’s Italian too! This article gives the etymologies of eight words, some of which […]

Fun for Friday: Seattle Etymology

| May 3, 2019

The Etymology Nerd is a fantastic site for those of us who love etymology and infographics! Here, you can find a BUNCH of etymology infographics, with a focus on place names in cities. But there are plenty of other etymology infographics too, dealing with a wide variety of topics. I particularly like this infographic with […]

Fun for Friday: Etymology of the Day

| April 5, 2019

If you’re a fan of etymology, check out Mashed Radish’s etymology of the day! Though it doesn’t seem to have any recent updates, there are a ton of word origins explained, complete with fun pictures!  

Fun for Friday: Folk Etymologies

| February 22, 2019

Sometimes, where we think a word came from is not necessarily the true story. According to Merriam-Webster, folk etymology is “the transformation of words so as to give them an apparent relationship to better-known or better-understood words.” This article talks about a number of cases of folk etymology, including the source of the words and […]

Fun For Friday: Lots of Etymology!

| January 25, 2019

If you’re as fascinated by word origins as I am, you might like this list: Etymologically Speaking. It’s one of the more extensive lists I’ve found for word origins, plus it also does some cool things with looking at the same word in several languages, showing how those words wound up similar or very different! […]