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May 3, 2023 by libroshombre
There are several reasons I like the Online Etymology website: it’s accurate, thorough, and often entertaining. For example, consider …
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Category: dictionaries, word origins, words
| Tags: crambazzled, jackanapes, loaf, lords, Noah Webster, Online Etymology Dictionary, Walt Whitman, Websters' Dictionary
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July 9, 2022 by libroshombre
There’s plenty that you and I don’t know. As expressed by Donald Rumsfeld in his typically tortured manner, “As …
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Category: anatomy, animals, races, racism, spelling, vowells, word origins, words, writing
| Tags: autological words, BBC, chins, Donald Rumsfeld, griffonage, Louie Armsztrong, Satchmo, Sound-It-Out Speller
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April 23, 2022 by libroshombre
In “A History of Reading,” Alberto Manguel wrote, “At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of …
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Category: Bible, book banning, censorship, e-reader, etymology, language, reading, word origins, words, writers, writing
| Tags: Archie Goodwin, Babar, Billy Budd, Billy Budd KGB, Dav Pilkey, Dr. Seuss, J. Edgar Hoover, Nero Wolfe, Rex Stout, ted geisel
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May 21, 2021 by libroshombre
“Mutable” is a good word that means “prone to change, inconstant,” according to Merriam-Webster, and it also describes all …
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Category: democracy, elections, engineering, fascism, libraries, plants, public libraries, republic, word origins, words
| Tags: al-Jazari, al-Qarawiyyin Library, Bloody Tubs, cooping, evites, Know Nothing
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January 2, 2021 by libroshombre
LIBRARIAN COLUMN Contact Greg Hill, 479-4344 December 31, 2020 Xenophon, the Greek mercenary and historian, left a fascinating account …
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Category: ancient history, history, librarians, word origins, writing
| Tags: Anabasis, Greece, Landmark Ancient Histories, marginalia, mercenaries, Persia, Robert F. Strassler, Xenophon
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December 21, 2017 by libroshombre
Pliny the Elder could have been describing current times when he declared, “The only certainty is that nothing is certain.” …
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Category: accents, dictionaries, English language, language, Uncategorized, word origins, words
| Tags: cock, DARE, Dictionary of American Regional English, eggcorn, mondegreen, sockeye
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March 24, 2017 by libroshombre
“Malarky!” was one of my father’s favorite epithets for things he deemed phony or exaggerated. I heard it all …
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Category: publishing, sayings, Uncategorized, word origins
| Tags: malarkey, project gutenberg, TAD, Thomas Aloysius Dorgan
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December 2, 2016 by libroshombre
The term “culprit” has been on my mind since I lost most of a recent powerpoint presentation due to …
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Category: dictionaries, language, Uncategorized, word origins, words
| Tags: Anu Garg, Beverly Cleary, buckle, Dictionary of American Regional English, Noah Webster, OED, oxford english dictionary
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August 30, 2016 by libroshombre
Those immersed in the reading life know an engrossing dance of words and concepts can induced by good writing, …
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Category: books, reading, reading well, Uncategorized, vocabulary, word origins, words, writing, writing well
| Tags: browsing, deep reading, Dorothy Parker, ferrinaceous, neatsfoot oil, Owen Barfield, P. G. Wodehouse, patrick O'Brian, poetic diction, proto-Germanic
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June 30, 2016 by libroshombre
A number of articles about synesthesia have cropped up lately. Reading Vladimir Nabakov’s wonderful memoir, “Speak Memory,” revealed his …
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Category: behavior, brain, synesthesia, Uncategorized, word origins, words
| Tags: argle-bargle, libraries, misophonia, Vladimir Nabakov, word aversion