The origins of a blatantly curious word
The meaning of the word ‘blatant’ is, one suspects, blatantly obvious. But how it arrived at its modern meaning is not. The word has a curious history within the world of English poetry, and ‘blatant’ took its time to arrive at its modern definition. Its origin is perhaps one of the most curious in all of the English language.
The interesting origins of an elusive word
Here’s a question for you: what does the word ‘tuffet’ mean? Can you picture or describe one? The word ‘tuffet’ should be easy enough to define. Its origins, similarly, should be fairly straightforward when we look into it. How about we make it a multiple choice question? Is a tuffet:
If you answered 3. then, alas, it appears you’re wrong. Or at least you may be. It’s a tricky issue, you see.
The interesting origins of a ubiquitous word
Here’s a question for you: when did the word ‘robot’ first enter the English language? And where did it come from? There are a few misconceptions about the origins and various meanings of the term ‘robot’, so the issue is worth examining a little more closely. The most common definition of ‘robot’ is the one provided by the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘An intelligent artificial being typically made of metal and resembling in some way a human or other animal.’
But the story of how the word came to have this meaning is a curious one. Its origin, indeed, takes us back to nineteenth-century Europe.
Ten surprising stories and histories surrounding the language of the modern world
This week we’ve been reading, and thoroughly enjoying, a review copy of Caroline Taggart’s book New Words for Old: Recycling Our Language for the Modern World
Our previous post, on ‘Ten Words We Got from Literature’, was so popular with readers that we have decided to write a sequel. We had several great suggestions from readers which we’ve incorporated into this list. As with the previous post, we’re interested only in words which have a definite origin in a literary work.