The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Hey, youz! Whah do ‘mericuns have all differnt aks-ay-ents? It’s, like, totally confusing and somewhat bizzahh, dontcha know. TALK THIS WAY An accent is “a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.” That’s not to be confused with a dialect, which is a specific form of […]
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Karl M. asks: Why is it called blackmail when you threaten to reveal something about someone if they don’t give you money? “Blackmail” has its roots in the early 16th century, first used by English farmers living on the England/Scotland border. It derives from the Middle English word “male” which itself is thought to derive from the Old English word […]
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Eric J. asks: I know it’s an old joke, but seriously, why do we drive on parkways but park on our driveways? There has to be a good reason we say it this way, right? To most people the fact that we drive on parkways and park on driveways is rarely pondered upon. This only comes to mind when pointed […]
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Alex M. asks: Is it the s or the c that’s silent in the word scent and why does it have both letters? Without a doubt, the C is silent in scent. And the reason the C is present at all can be attributed to a few scholars’ compulsive need for orderliness. Like many English words, scent was borrowed from […]
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Mark Y. asks: Why were people who made alcohol during prohibition called bootleggers? Although Prohibition officially began on January 16, 1920, the impetus for banning the production, sale, importation and transportation (though not the consumption) of alcohol had been brewing for decades before. Part of a string of reforms introduced by Progressives, Protestants and other activists to cure all of […]
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Jared M. asks: Why are breasts called boobs? There’s an oft repeated and decidedly untrue claim that Eskimos have hundreds of words for “snow”. (Beyond the fact that there is no single “Eskimo language”, when talking about the wider Eskimo-Aleut language family, these actually have roughly the same number of root-words for snow as English.) The false claim that they […]
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Mark R. asks: Where did the whole kids thing of saying “Guess what?” and answering with “chicken butt!” come from? An appropriate response to nearly any rhetorical playground question from “What’s up?” to “Guess what?”, “chicken butt” has been an important part of the childish lexicon for many decades. The retort’s origins are usually speculated to have come from a […]
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Mark D. asks: Was there an original Tom who inspired the phrase peeping Tom? The term “peeping Tom” is used to describe a person who derives some sort of enjoyment – usually sexual – from secretly watching people during their most intimate moments. But who exactly is this “Tom” fellow and why does everyone seem to think he likes secretly […]
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Mark K. asks: Why do we say someone is in cahoots? What is a cahoot? Meaning alternately companions, confederates, partners and/or conspirators, in cahoots is a phrase used to describe a situation where people are working together, often on an illegal, immoral, secret and/or unethical scheme. As for the word “cahoot” itself, it is defined as a “partnership, league.” The […]
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Nori K. asks: Where did the phrase red herring come from? Meaning a distraction or false trail, the expression “red herring” has been relatively commonly used for the last two centuries, and its origins do, in fact, begin with a rust-colored fish. However, until quite recently, the accepted origins of red herring were themselves a false trail. The literal sense […]
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Simon K. asks: Why do we call it “red tape” when there are a lot of needless obstacles and paperwork in getting something done in business and government? The practice of referring to “excessive bureaucratic rigmarole” as red tape dates back more than 400 years to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, Charles V (1500-1558). […]
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Grey L. asks: When did people start using punctuation and who invented the common marks we use? INTHEBEGINNINGTHEREWASNOPUNCTUATIONLOWERCASELETTERSOREVENSPACESBETWEENWORDSTHEREALSOWASNOGRAMMATICALWAYOFDISTINGUISHINGWHENANIDEAHADFINISHEDANDANEWONEBEGUNITDIDNTHELPTHATTHEIDEAOFSTANDARDIZEDSPELLINGWASALSONOTATHINGATLEASTNOTASWEWOULDTHINKOFITREADERSWERELEFTTOMUDDLETHEIRWAYTHROUGHANYTEXTASBESTTHEYCOULDUNSURPRISINGLYUNDERSTANDINGWHATAPARTICULARWORKWASACTUALLYSAYINGONTHEFIRSTREADTHROUGHWASPRETTYWELLUNHEARDOFATTHISTIME The earliest writings, which were syllabic and/or logographic (think Mayan and Chinese), had no need for either spacing or punctuation, as each word was typically self-contained in the symbol. However, as previously demonstrated, the lack of punctuation and spacing in alphabetic writing […]
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Baki J asks: Why are people who are doing something crazy called mad as a hatter? Although the phrase “mad as a hatter” is, and will likely long be, associated with Charles Dodgson’s (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll’s) 1865 novel, Alice in Wonderland, contrary to popular belief, Carroll neither coined the phrase nor did he use it in his works. (The Hatter […]
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Carla T. asks: When someone has an alternate name than their legal one that they go by, why is it called a “nick”name? A form of nickname has been around since the early 14th century- eke name, literally meaning “an additional name.” Eke is an even older word, dating back to about 1200 meaning “to increase.” (Eke also meant “to […]
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Kiaan D. asks: Why do you say “sic him” to dogs when you want them to attack someone? People have been telling dogs to “sic ’em,” with the intent to have the dog attack individual(s), since at least the nineteenth century. While this may seem odd given common modern definitions for “sick” or the variant “sic,” at the time this […]
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Gideon S. asks: Why is a final performance called a swansong? When someone performs for the last time, we often refer to it as a “swan song” which seems odd given that swans aren’t particularly known for their stage presence… So where exactly did this phrase come from? This expression is generally thought to have its genesis in the over […]
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M. Matthews asks: Why do people with dogs pulling sleds say mush to make the dogs go? If we relied on Yukon Cornelius from the 1964 Christmas classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to teach us about dog sledding, we might be slightly misled. In multiple instances throughout the movie, Cornelius cracks the whip and hollers, “Mush, mush!!” to his dog […]
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James E. asks: Where did the at symbol come from? Ubiquitous today, until its use in email addresses, the @ symbol was never really all that popular, with this very fact being one of the reasons it was chosen to be used in electronic message addresses in the first place. So where did the @ symbol come from? The earliest […]
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