Tag: word origins

Replied to a tweet by Jon UdellJon Udell (Twitter)
Does this cast you as Dr. W. C. Minor in the story, albeit not in the same sort of mad man way to wordnik’s Sir James Murray? Seriously though, this is an awesome use case.
📖 14% done with The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition by Seth Lerer

cover of The History of the English Language by Seth Lerer

Listened to Lecture 5 and the first several minutes of 6 today while cooking in the kitchen.

There’s some interesting history about the ideas of law, ligatures, and links. He also has an interesting history of the words ‘apocalypse’ and ‘revelation’ which ultimately mean the same thing. Apocalypse essentially means to ‘take away the cover’. He doesn’t go into it, but this word also has historical relation to the removal of the curtain within the holy of holies, or in the New Testament the rending of said curtain at the death of Jesus. Subsequently there has obviously been a lot of semantic shift to create our modern day meaning of apocalypse.

👓 Scots Word of the Season: ‘Leerie’ | The Bottle Imp

Read Scots Word of the Season: ‘Leerie’ (The Bottle Imp)
Leerie n. a lamplighter, who lit gas lamps in towns and cities (before electric light)
The word leerie is perhaps best known nowadays from the nostalgic poem ‘The Lamplighter’ by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). The character, ‘Leerie’, is depicted as a romantic wanderer who charms th...
I have to wonder if traffic on the site has picked up for this word based on the recent opening of the film Mary Poppins Returns?

It seems that leeries are just as pictuesque and poetic in other incarnations as they are depicted in Mary Poppins Returns. Why the romanticism for such a menial and dirty seeming profession?