(n.) a fence post The ‘pale’ in beyond the pale is a fence post. In that sense, it derives at length from palus, a Latin word for a wooden stake (and is therefore unrelated to the adjective pale, which comes from the same Latin root that gave us pallid). Fence pales or palings, as they’re still often known, were typically of simple design and merely hammered into the earth to mark a boundary or enclose a specific area, like a farmer’s paddock. But despite their simplicity, they often had a more significant purpose: lines of pales were used to mark the outskirts of local authorities, and the l ..read more

(n.) trash, worthless refuse material; (v.) to criticize severely; to dismiss as or prove to be nonsense For such a throwaway word (no pun inten—actually, no, let’s say that one was intended), from an etymological viewpoint rubbish is actually quite an interesting word. For starters, that –ish ending isn’t original. Although the word’s precise history is somewhat muddy (though it’s perhaps related in some way to rubble, which would in turn likely put it in the same ballpark as rub), when it first appeared in English around six centuries ago, rubbish was typically spelled something along the l ..read more

(adj.) entire, complete On the surface, it’s not the most interesting of words, but whole has something of an intriguing story behind it. Etymologically, whole comes from its Old English equivalent, hal. (In the sense of being solidly sound, it’s an etymological cousin of the hale in expressions like “hale and hearty.”) Its initial wh– is first recorded in the late Middle English period, with spellings like whoole, whol, and whoal found in the historical record from the mid 1400s onwards. But as we mentioned on Twitter, it wasn’t just whole that picked up a new initial letter around that time ..read more

(n.) a gesture or movement of the hands used in conversation when a word is forgotten or the speaker loses his train of thought An old tweet popped back up on HH recently after an unexpected family connection was discovered on Twitter. Last year, in a thread of facts from the HH book Why Is This A Question?, we talked about Butterworths—that is, those flailingly desperate hand gestures you make when you forget a word or lose your train of thought. Also known as speech-fail gestures, Butterworths take their name from University College London linguistics professor Brian Butterworth, who revolu ..read more

(n.) the colourful chest plumage of a robin; the robin itself A favourite festive fact from last year’s HH Twitter feed did the rounds online again recently: a robin redbreast’s chest feathers are actually orange, not red, but the nickname redbreast predates the English language’s use of the word orange as the name of a colour. We’ve talked a lot about orange and oranges before on HH, so we’ll keep this part of the story brief. Take the word back as far as it will go—via French, Latin, and Persian—and you’ll find orange has its roots in the Sanskrit word for the orange tree and its fruit, nar ..read more

(n.) the insertion of a sound into a word, often to ease its pronunciation or as an automatic consequence of its phonological context The reason some people say “ath–uh–lete” or “ham–p–ster” instead of athlete and hamster is the same reason why English football fans cheer on “Eng–guh–land”: a phonological process called epenthesis. Derived via Latin from a Greek root literally meaning to put or place inside, epenthesis is the insertion of a sound (or, in different linguistic contexts, a letter or entire syllable) into an existing word. In linguistic contexts, there are several different kinds ..read more

(n.) overgrown plants and grasses on a riverbank or at a lakeside To shirp something is to cut or trim it—while shirpings are the overgrown, untrimmed plants that grow on lakesides and riversides. That’s a dialect term first recorded in the late 1800s, but likely (like a lot of dialect terms) in use a lot longer than that. Etymologically, it’s little more than a dialect variation of the standard verb sharp—but if it derives from a verb meaning to cut, and came to mean ‘to cut’ itself, why are shirpings areas of uncut vegetation? The English Dialect Dictionary sheds some light on the conundrum ..read more

(n.) an especially beautiful sunset In America’s Pacific Northwest, a winding 160-mile river crosses the border from Idaho and flows into Washington’s Snake river. Further downstream, the Snake in turn meets the Columbia river, the longest river in America to empty into the Pacific. Close to the mouth of the smaller tributary, however, stands a large half-submerged rock. That led to the local Sahaptin people to name a nearby village Palús—literally ‘that which is standing up in the water’. That name was then anglicized, and the river flowing into the Snake became known as the Palouse. Etymolo ..read more

(n.) a design feature based on or enduring from an earlier design which has become obsolete When was the last time you used a floppy disk? Hell, some of you might be young enough to have never used a floppy disk. But in a hangover from the early days of computers, when you save a document you usually click an icon with a floppy disk pictured on it. This is a skeuomorph—a design feature based on or integrating elements of an earlier design that is now outdated. Not that all skeuomorphs need be as intangible as icons on a screen, of course. Some are very much solid objects—like electric lightbu ..read more

(adj.) junior, of inferior rank There’s an odd corner of our language where established French phrases are ran together as one unit, and the result then added to our English vocabulary as a single word. Embonpoint, meaning plumpness, for instance, comes from en bon point (literally ‘in good shape’). Do something point-blank, and you’re really doing it de pointe en blanc (a phrase likely alluding to a weapon being fired straight forward, into open space). The French legal tag culpable, prest (‘guilty, ready [to prove our case]’) is the origin of our word culprit. And an affair was originally a ..read more