5 posts tagged with etymology and history. (View popular tags)
Displaying 1 through 5 of 5. Subscribe:

How new words are created - just one section of a site that charts 'How English went from an obscure Germanic dialect to a global language'.
posted by unliteral on Dec 1, 2011 - 37 comments

The Language of Food is a blog with only four entries, but each one is an excellent, well-researched essay on, yes, food and language: ketchup, entrée, dessert, and ceviche. The author, Dan Jurafsky, teaches a parallel course at Stanford, the syllabus for which you can peruse here. via (mefi's own) honestengine.blogspot.com
posted by Rumple on Aug 14, 2010 - 10 comments

The Atlas of True Names reveals the etymological roots, or original meanings, of the familiar terms on today's maps of the World, Europe, the British Isles and the United States. For example, Britain = Great Land of the Tattooed, New Jersey = New Island of Spears, and Chicago = Stink Onion. There's now an iPhone app. However, at least one linguistic historian takes issue with some of their methodology. Mefi's own languagehat responds.
posted by desjardins on Jun 17, 2010 - 67 comments

I've considered myself a fanboy on occasion in the past, but it never occurred to me to investigate the history of the term. Technologizer's Harry McCracken (god I love that name) has a *far* more detailed and interesting look into the history of the term than I would ever have considered undertaking. [more inside]
posted by antifuse on May 20, 2010 - 26 comments

Did you ever wonder where nursery rhymes came from? Of course, the etymology of some rhymes is contentious, but at least you can get the tune right [uses flash] while you argue about them.
posted by 5MeoCMP on Nov 10, 2005 - 16 comments

Page: 1