There’s a new theory as to where the term “eskimo” originated.
Click the above image to read the brief article, but here’s a snippet: Continue reading “Names and Things”
A Peer Reviewed Blog
There’s a new theory as to where the term “eskimo” originated.
Click the above image to read the brief article, but here’s a snippet: Continue reading “Names and Things”
I was asked a question at a recent presentation I did up at the University of Chicago, concerning why the etymology of technical terms is a focus in an intro book that I wrote (and which I use in my own 100-level classes). Given my persistent critique of quests for origins it seems odd, or so the question might go, to focus on the origins of words, no?
etymology (n.)
late 14c., ethimolegia “facts of the origin and development of a word,” from Old French etimologie, ethimologie (14c., Modern French étymologie), from Latin etymologia, from Greek etymologia “analysis of a word to find its true origin”
Good point. Why do I talk about etymologies in that book? Continue reading “An Apology for Etymology”
“You speak creole” sounds like a nice, simple, declarative sentence and statement of fact, no? It’s just three words, after all, in the English language, plainly identifying others who speak in what are mixed or hybrid languages.
Simple as that. Right? Continue reading “It Bounces Off Me and Sticks To You”