Daily Dose

From Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, by Kory Stamper

NOTICE

"... a language that doesn't change is a dead language, and as much as etymological fallacists seem to love the purity of Latin, you'll notice that none of them have abandoned that whore English for it."

From Posh: On Etymology and Linguistic Originalism

Daily Dose

From The Apple That Astonished Paris, by Billy Collins

ETYMOLOGY

They call Basque an orphan language.
Linguists do not know
what other languages gave it birth.

From the high window of the orphanage
it watches English walking alone to the cemetary
to visit the graves of its parents,
Latin and Ango-Saxon.

Daily Dose

From Red Herrings and White Elephants: The Origins of the Phrases We Use Every Day, by Albert Jack

IDIOMS

"Idioms are words or phrases which those of us with a native English tongue take for granted, as we have grown up to recognize their meaning. That despite the words being used having absolutely nothing to do with the context of a conversation we are having."

From the Introduction