Wordorigins.org

Screenshot of actor William Hurt behind a network news desk from the film "Broadcast News"

"Let's do the fucking news"

Calvinball — Wordorigins.org 6 October 2025 Calvinball  is the name of a fictional sport coined by cartoonist Bill Watterston in his syndicated comic strip  Calvin and Hobbes . In the strip, Calvinball is a sport wher...

It wasn’t planned; it’s just how the revision schedule fell out; but this one is appropriate for the start of SCOTUS’s term

#etymology #wordorigins #language #uspolitics #SCOTUS

"A dozen or so chapters devoted to whale anatomy"

There's nothing wrong with the passive voice. It exists for a reason, as in this example.

fond — Wordorigins.org 3 October 2025 The modern adjective  fond  refers to the quality of having affection, liking, or eagerness for someone or something. But this was not always so. In Middle English  fonn...

fond

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Fool me once: the magical origin of the word hoax Frauds, swindles, cons, scams, and deceptions are collectively known as hoaxes. But there's more than meets the eye.

I was interviewed by NPR the other day about the origin of "hoax"

www.npr.org/2025/10/01/n...

Your Daily Stella: Get a room! (with her boyfriend Arlo)

I didn't see anything here about whether or not patient outcomes are improved with AI. Lots about radiologists' workloads, but nothing about whether patients are healthier with AI or not.

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything in this piece about patient outcomes improving (or worsening) with the use of AI. That should be the ultimate metric: are we healthier with AI or without?

(I realize there will be no one answer to this question.)

meritocracy — Wordorigins.org 1 October 2025 A meritocracy is lauded in some circles as the ideal society, where one is rewarded for one’s skill, intelligence, and abilities rather than, for instance, the circumstances of one’s...

Meritocracy: a 1950s-era socialist/dystopian critique of capitalism that was popularized by satirists

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Ultima Thule / Thule — Wordorigins.org 29 September 2025 The name Thule has a long history of referring to some distant place. It may be most familiar to English-speakers today as the name of place in Greenland. In 1910, Danish explorer...

Thule / Ultima Thule

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Your Daily Stella (with Willow): what happens when two submissive dogs try to play with each other

YouTube video by Marsh Family "Measles and Polio Down in the Schoolyard" - Marsh Family parody of Paul Simon "Me and Julio" on RFK

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDiX...

Once Upon a Time in the West Elm

suborn — Wordorigins.org 26 September 2025 Suborn  is a verb that is usually heard in the context of lying under oath, and indeed roughly half of the instances of the verb in the  Corpus of Contemporary American E...

suborn

#etymology #wordorigins #language

hogmanay — Wordorigins.org 24 September 2025 This word is one that will be unfamiliar to many, if not most, Americans. Hogmanay is a Scots word for New Year’s Eve or for a gift given to someone, especially a child, at the ne...

I probably should have saved this update for December, but here it is . . . hogmanay

#etymology #wordorigins #language

Your Daily Stella: when there aren't many dogs in the park, she makes her own fun

Be like Annie, nobody is stopping you

just do it — Wordorigins.org 22 September 2025 Nike’s famous  Just Do It  advertising campaign was launched in 1988 and went on to become one of the most famous slogans of all time. But the inspiration for the slogan i...

“Just do it”: more proof that an odious origin doesn’t affect sales

#wordorigins #etymology #language

Your Daily Stella: busy day at the park

True, but the business models of the internet, especially AI, make the creation of information economically unfeasible

No.

YouTube video by Elle Cordova Reference books hanging out

Reference books hanging out together

whole nine yards — Wordorigins.org 19 September 2025 Few phrases have as many tales attached to their origin as does  the whole nine yards , which has spawned a raft of popular etymologies, all of them wrong. The phrase doesn’t h...

the whole nine yards

#etymology #wordorigins #language

YouTube video by Bologermanica The Dictionary of Old English. Interview with Stephen Pelle.

An interview with Stephen Pelle, editor of the University of Toronto's Dictionary of Old English.

#language #medieval #lexicography #oldenglish

Your Daily Stella: Rainy day, so no park, but that doesn't stop her

unicorn — Wordorigins.org 17 September 2025 We all know a  unicorn  is a mythical creature resembling a horse with a single horn projecting from its forehead, but the term has some quite interesting slang uses. The ...

unicorn

#etymology #wordorigins #language