Simon E. asks: I was just wondering what a gamut is in the expression “run the gamut”? Meaning “the entire range,” the word gamut traces its origins to the Middle Ages and a system for designating musical notes. Around the turn of the second millennium, Guido of Arezzo, a medieval monk, developed a system of solmization, i.e., designating musical notes […]
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Marcus asks: Where did the words flotsum and jetsum come from? Bumping into a rock or a reef, war, swamped by rough weather or high waves, pilot error or pirates, there are a variety of ways a ship can sink. After it does, depending on whether it floated out on its own, was thrown overboard or sank to Davy Jones […]
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Jared H. asks: Why do we call medicine balls that when they’re just round weights? Medicine balls, for those of you who haven’t been to a gym or never accidentally kicked one thinking it was like a soccer ball (true story), are heavy weighted balls coming in a variety of sizes and weights (with the biggest we could find ringing […]
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Paul H. asks: Why doesn’t the moon have a cool name like the moons of other planets in our solar system? Almost every planet in our solar system and their respective orbiting moons have names taken directly from Greek and Roman mythology. For example, Mars is named for the Greek and Roman god of War, also known as Ares, while […]
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Keith D. asks: I was just wondering who came up with the expression “This ain’t my first rodeo”? For the uninitiated, “This ain’t my first rodeo” is roughly equivalent to telling a person that you’re more than prepared for a given situation or that it offers little challenge to you. It’s more often than not used derisively, usually in situations […]
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Matt J. asks: Was the peanut gallery expression really originally a racial term? Used to refer to those giving unsolicited (and unvalued) advice, the expression “peanut gallery” has its roots in late 19th century vaudeville, although for some, the phrase is considered a racial slur. A typical vaudevillian show of music, drama, comedy, acrobatics, dance and other acts was performed […]
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Ben Franklin accomplished a lot of things over his 84 years on Earth. He was an influential newspaper editor and printer. He was an inventor, known for bifocals, the lightening rod, and Franklin stove. He was the governor of Pennsylvania for three years. He was an American founding father, who had a hand in drafting the Declaration of Independence. The […]
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Richard G. asks: What does the “lo” in lo and behold mean? Like a wordy exclamation point, the two defining words in “lo and behold” mean basically the same thing. Specifically, the word lo!, meaning “look!” first appeared in Middle English (1100-1500 AD) in the 1200s, and essentially was clipped from the early English imperative word for “look,” lok. An […]
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Jillian A. asks: Who invented the word bimbo? Depending on whom you ask, bimbo can be an insult or just a description. Usually implying a lack of intelligence, and often combined with physical attractiveness and promiscuity, today bimbo is often used to describe someone who isn’t that bright, and gets by on her (or his) looks (or wealth). And this […]
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Byron H. asks: Why is it sometimes catsup and other times ketchup? The two distinct spellings for what today is essentially the same condiment are simply the reflection of the evolution of nearly everyone’s favorite French fry topper. (Well, in certain regions of the world.) Today often disdained as low-brow, when it was first conceived, ketchup was revered for the […]
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Jeremy R. asks: Is it true that more words break the I before E rule than follow it? If so, how come this is taught at all? If you ever want to start a fight among a group of linguists and orthographers, bring up the grammar school rule: “I before E, except after C,” which has been around since at […]
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Jim R. asks: Is it true that the word jumbo came from the name of an elephant? The word “jumbo” can roughly be understood to mean “a large specimen of its kind” and it’s often posited that the word entered the English language thanks to an elephant. While this is certainly a nice story, the truth is a little more complicated. First […]
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Mark C. asks: What does the letters in the stinky term P.U. stand for? Often used to accuse someone of exceeding his allotted level of funk, P.U. is, surprisingly, not an acronym, but, rather, likely was derived simply from the pronunciation of its parent word. Dating back to the early 17th century, a common exclamation of contempt for a foul […]
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Marla W. asks: Did Shakespeare really invent the expression “to stand on ceremony” or is this just another expression he gets credit for online that was invented by somebody else? Thanks! Dating back to the early days of the English Renaissance, and quite possibly having been coined by none other than the Bard, himself, the phrase “to stand on ceremony” […]
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Gracen R. asks: Why is someone who is lazy called a couch potato? If you want to call someone lazy, a time-honoured way to do so would be to call them a “couch potato”. But why is it we compare lazy people to potatoes and why on Earth did some random guy own the trademark rights to such a silly […]
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Michael S. asks: Why is it called Area “51”? Where are the other 50 areas? Despite the CIA’s release of previously classified documents in 2013 that acknowledged the existence of Area 51 as a top-secret U.S. government research facility, many questions about the site remain unanswered. One of the most innocuous, but nonetheless puzzling, is its choice of name. Although […]
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Katy J. asks: Why do we say “I was beside myself”? Dating back to the dawn of Modern English, the expression “beside myself” has been used to denote someone not in his right mind. After William conquered England in 1066, French became the language of scholars, clergy and nobility in Britain and remained so even throughout much of the grinding […]
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Tom C. asks: The V in V-Day was for Victory right? So what does the D in D-Day stand for? The Battle of Normandy, also known as D-Day, started on June 6, 1944 and was the beginning of the major invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. But why was it called “D-Day”? You might at first be […]
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