dawn.vogel | 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 […]
dawn.vogel | 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 […]
dawn.vogel | 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, […]
dawn.vogel | 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 […]
dawn.vogel | 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 […]
dawn.vogel | 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!
dawn.vogel | 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 […]
dawn.vogel | 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! […]
dawn.vogel | January 11, 2019
Why doesn’t anything rhyme with purple? Or orange? It might have to do with the origins of those words. This article on Gizmodo talks about the etymology of colors, or how they got their English names. But did you know that not all languages have words for every color? And there’s also the belief that […]
dawn.vogel | November 2, 2018
If you’ve ever wondered how famous bands got their name, look no further! Wikipedia has you covered with this list of band name etymologies! It’s interesting to see the prevalence of names that come from dreams and also from Tolkien. Take a look through and see if your favorites are mentioned!
