Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Friday, September 5, 2008

Origin of "Viz."

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1895 The contraction "viz" is a curious instance of the universality of arbitrary signs. There are few writers who do not apprecia...
Tuesday, June 3, 2008

The Original Blowout

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1895 "You have often heard the expression 'We had a great blowout last night,' used in connection with a dance or some sort of ...
Friday, May 23, 2008

Ten Long Words

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1895 A correspondent wants to know if the telegraph companies would send the following ten words, which he says are the ten largest words in...
Friday, May 16, 2008

The Accent

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1895 Mr. Story, the sculptor, who began life as a lawyer, tells a good story which illustrates the fact that the emphasis which punctuates h...
Sunday, May 11, 2008

Encouragement

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1895 "Swiggles' books are very well spoken of, are they not?" asked the timid looking man. "Yes, sir," replied the b...
Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Vocabularies

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1895 Shakespeare's vocabulary is said to have been the largest used by any English writer, and he had not 25,000, but 15,000, and of the...
Sunday, May 4, 2008

"Once" For "When Once"

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1895 Within the last few years this misuse of the word "once" has become quite common. Is it a provincialism, which has gradually ...
Thursday, April 17, 2008

Young D. Webster Is Office Cut-Up

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1916 NEEDS A SELF-ACTING BRAKE, EDITOR SAYS. Lad All Right in a Way, but His Journalistic Rise Is Too Swift. (From the Brownville Bugle.) Da...
Sunday, April 6, 2008

A Curious Coincidence

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1901 The letters "O N" might be supposed to possess a mysterious charm, as they form the termination of many of the most distingui...
Saturday, July 28, 2007

Street Illumination

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1917 "Illuminating engineers are now turning all their energies toward a system for the proper distribution of street lighting," w...
Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Puzzles in Chinese Names

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1900 "When I went to school I was always at the head of the class in geography," said the Studious Citizen. "I could 'bou...
Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Ireland's National Emblem – The Shamrock

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1905 There are few plants, if any, that are as closely associated in the people's wind with any one nation in particular as is the littl...
Thursday, July 5, 2007

What "Decimated" Means

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1915 The French communique described the attacking Germans east of Rheims as having been "decimated." Many persons wonder whether ...
Saturday, June 30, 2007

Ostentatious Humor of the Day

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1896 Little Brother — "Do you know what 'ostentation' means?" Little Sister — "The way other people show off. — Puck...

Wood for Resisting Fires

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1896 A report from Consul Robertson on the free port system of Hamburg, just published by the State Department, contains the curious item of...
Thursday, June 28, 2007

Indians Believed to Be Syrians

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1896 Canon J. D. Good, of British Columbia, tells a San Francisco Call reporter that his long residence among the Columbian Indians warrant...

Why They're Called Tumblers

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1896 Every day we drink out of a tumbler. Why is the large glass that holds our milk and water so called? Years ago Professor Max Muller was...
Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The Douglas Shoe

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1900 The best advertised and consequently the best known shoe in the world today is undoubtedly made by the W. L. Douglas Shoe Co., of Brock...
Monday, June 4, 2007

Wise Compromise in Slang

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1914 "Good slang is permissible among school children," according to Dr. G. Stanley Hall. Precisely the same thing is true of coll...

Origin of Some of World's Most Popular Quotations

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1914 Famous Words That Will Endure Cynical Old Diogenes Told the World "Habit Is Second Nature" It is recorded that an ignorant pe...