English words tell a lot of stories. To get back to their origins, linguists apply the comparative method. Languages are not isolated entities, but belong to linguistic families—English is a west ...

Well, “comrade,” I bet you always thought that word comes from Russian. Not so. Although the term was often associated with communism in Western culture during the last century, Communists of the ...

The history of words like 'blog' Like scientist, any number of useful words and phrases began as little more than quips, wisecracks, and throwaway lines. When Andy Warhol reportedly observed over a ...

English can be a really beautiful, poetic language, with words and phrases inspired and created by great authors and poets like Shakespeare, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, and Sylvia Plath. But ...

Did you know there’s a deer in “wilderness”? A sheep in “mutt”? A gridiron in “roster”? Let’s examine the surprising origins of these words, as well as some fascinating “trivia.” >>Wilderness — “Deer” ...