Hey, you know what’s fun?  As you page through this site, try to discern the logical connection between the subject matter of the columns and the little ads at the end of each one (and the large ad in the left column too, actually).  There almost always is one, but it can be fairly surreal.  My use of the word “constructions” in a column, for instance, apparently prompts ads for Carhartt work clothes.

Onward.  It occurred to me the other day that it has been almost four years since I switched from Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux.  What brought this to

Continue reading January 2009 Issue

Dear Word Detective: While watching my granddaughter play at a playground, a lady’s children said that they were building a campfire. I mentioned (jokingly) that I hope that they didn’t have any matches and would start the playground equipment on fire. She replied that her kids called them “fire sticks.” After some thought, I decided that their description was better than mine. So, why are matches called “matches”? My dictionary, besides describing them, indicates that “match” is of French origin and has a date of 1549.–

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Dear Word Detective: I have two questions for you to answer. One, what the heck is a “fedora,” and two, where does it come from? Also (yes, I know that this is more than two) how do you take one off? Is it like a hat? — Aife N.

Well, to answer your, ahem, fourth question first, yes, it’s like a hat. In fact, a “fedora” is a type of hat, usually worn by men, made of soft felt and having a center crease in the crown and a wide brim. I suspect

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Dear Word Detective: On a recent episode of the Food Network’s program “Good Eats,” Alton Brown discussed Dutch ovens and said that the origin of the name is unknown and may have referred either to the method of casting the pots, which was invented by the Dutch, or as of the result of the importation of the pots to New Amsterdam. As I watched it I thought “Aha! Evan will know!” but a quick perusal of the internet indicates you probably won’t. Since that’s never stopped you before, however, care to hazard

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Dear Word Detective: Well, I finally got around to reading Alice in Wonderland and learned that the race the animals who have been caught in Alice’s tears run in order to dry off is referred to by one of the animals as a “caucus-race.” This got me to thinking about the origin of the word “caucus.” The Oxford English Dictionary is no help — it says the word’s origins are obscure. Any thoughts? — Jackie.

Well, my first thought is that I don’t own too many books after all. It

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Dear Word Detective: What is the definition of “couzened,” as in “was now resolved to be couzened no more”? Thanks for the help! — Rebecca.

Thanks for a good question. I remember running across that word many times over the years, and inferring its meaning from its context, but I’d never, until now, taken the time to investigate its background.

You don’t give a source for the quotation you cite (assuming it is a quotation from something you’ve read), but a Google search turns up only one source online for those exact words, “William Lilly’s History

Continue reading Cozen

Dear Word Detective: I was listening to “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” on National Public Radio, and the theme was Memorial Day. The host Michael Lasser played Nora Bayes’ version of George M. Cohan’s “Over There.” In the second verse, unlike the familiar “The Yanks are coming” she sings “The Sammies are coming.” I had never heard this nickname for American soldiers before. Was it a popular nickname for doughboys in the period around WWI? Or was it Cohan trying to start a new word? — Max Urata.

Thanks for a great

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Dear Word Detective: I have been having an ongoing argument with a dear friend about the phrase “for all intents and purposes,” which she swears to the death is “for all intensive purposes,” and says I sound like a ninny when I say it wrong. Can you figure out how this phrase crept into common usage and help us settle this dispute? — Collectively Confused in Columbus.

I guess this column isn’t as effective a deterrent to silliness as I had hoped, because I actually answered a question about

Continue reading Intensive Purposes

Dear Word Detective: What does the word “puke” mean in the following sentence: “Wilt thou rob this leathern jerkin, crystal-button, not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish pouch…”? — George.

Hmm. For some reason, I have the odd feeling I’ve wandered into an episode of Jeopardy. Well, OK, what is King Henry the Fourth, Part One, by William Shakespeare? I’d like to expound on that answer, but I must admit that the play in question is not my strong suit. I can, however, recite large chunks of both Hamlet and Macbeth from memory should the

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Dear Word Detective: Shortly after the birth of my nephew, my sister-in-law informed the family that she did not want his pacifier to be referred to as a “binky.” That got me wondering where the term came from in the first place and then how it became a common term for a baby’s pacifier. — J. Smith.

Hmmph. Kids are hopelessly spoiled these days. When I was an infant, we didn’t have any fancy-schmanzy “pacifiers.” If we wanted something to gnaw on, we got off our duffs and found a nice twig, and we turned out

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Dear Word Detective: I haven’t been able to find an etymology for the word “sleazy.” can you help? — Jon.

Sure, that’s what I’m here for. I mean “to help,” not “for sleazy,” of course. Then again, since you found me on the internet, you’ve no doubt already stumbled on more “sleazy” than any sane person can stand. I actually wrote a column on “sleazy” many years ago, but that was before the internet and sleaze-on-demand cable TV (not to mention pole-dancing classes at the local Y) made “sleaze” truly a household word, so we’ll give

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Dear Word Detective: I am a confessed crossword puzzle addict. Recently, I noticed both “canny” and “uncanny” as clues in the same puzzle. Well trained by your writings, I immediately recognized this as another example of “un-” words that don’t mean the negation of the apparent root. The question then arises, were the words originally related? — Ray.

That’s a darn good question. Incidentally, as a crossword puzzle addict, you’re made of sterner stuff than I am. People assume that I must love crossword puzzles, but I don’t, for the simple

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Dear Word Detective: I’m trying to find the origin of the word “pirate.” Is “pirate” of European descent? — Brent Lilly.

Oh boy, pirates. At one point in my youth, after my passion for dinosaurs had cooled but before I became fixated on shortwave radio, I decided that I really wanted to be a pirate. My unlikely ambition was almost certainly inspired by the classic over-the-top performance of Robert Newton as Long John Silver in Disney’s 1950 movie of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.” It turned out, however, that

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Dear Word Detective: What is the root meaning of “in-law”? I know it means “related by marriage,” but where did its usage first begin? — Donna Carrico.

Hooray for in-laws! Gosh, what wonderful people. While you may suspect a forced smile behind that sentiment, I have nothing but warm feelings towards all my in-laws. And that has almost nothing to do with the fact that the “in-laws” who live closest to me also happen to be heavily armed and possess poor impulse control.

“In-law” is one of those odd locutions

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Dear Word Detective: What is the origin of “jink” and “jinks”? Are they related? — Bill Billings.

Hmm. In reading your question, I realized that I’m not entirely certain whether you’re asking about “jinks” as in “high jinks” (sometimes spelled “hijinks”) or “jinx” in the sense of “enduring curse.” So, to be on the safe side, we’ll take a look at “jink,” “jinks” and “jinx.” You know, it just occurred to me that we’d be in serious trouble if this column were operating on one of those obnoxious “voice recognition”

Continue reading Jinks, High Jinks, Jinx

Dear Word Detective: How did the musical instrument called the “recorder” get its name and what is the connection, if any, to the other type of recorder, such as the tape recorder? My Webster’s defines the recorder as a flute with eight finger holes and a whistlelike mouthpiece. It also lists the root for “record” as coming from the Latin “recordari,” meaning to remember. It further states that the meaning remember comes from Latin words for “again” and “heart.” I don’t see the description of the “recorder” instrument in those sources. What

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Dear Word Detective: “Get your mojo on!” Where and when did this phrase come into popularity? — Catherine Clark.

That’s a darn good question. Interestingly, I just plugged “mojo” into Google News and found about 1700 hits for the word at the moment. The first was from something called The Benton Evening News, from Illinois, where they seem to be convinced that the word is properly capitalized as “MoJo,” which it isn’t. I suspect that they’re either confusing “mojo” with “MoDo,” snarky blog parlance for Maureen Dowd, the New York Times

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Dear Word Detective: I can’t seem to find the answer to this anywhere. I’ve heard, several times recently, the phrase that someone would “get their lunch handed to them” if they tried something beyond their talent level against experts or professionals (like in the phrase, “if you try to compete head-to-head with The Word Detective, you’ll get your lunch handed to you”). What does “getting your lunch handed to you” have to do with being easily embarrassed or defeated when going up against experts? — Ed H.

En garde, mon ami. Actually, I’d

Continue reading Lunch (to have one’s handed to)