06.07.08

I was getting a little worried there . . .

Posted in myths and misconceptions, resources, word history at 11:10 am by Bill Brohaugh

The latest edition of The Harmless Drudge email newsletter arrived Friday, 6/6—the first in half a year. This is not from the less-than-harmless political observer Matt Drudge; it’s from Word Myths author David Wilton, who takes the newsletter’s name from Samuel Johnson’s self-description in 1755’s A Dictionary of the English Language:

LEXICO’GRAPHER. n.s. A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and signification of words.

Such wonderful drudgery is the focus of wordorigins.org, and Wilton’s Word Myths—one of the sources for Everything You Know About English Is Wrong. For example, Wrong turns to Wilton for his delightful debunking of a “word history” internet post, “Life in the 1500s.” In its latest edition, The Harmless Drudge points out to those of us fascinated by wrong-wrong-wrong that bordello and brothel, despite similarities in spelling and meaning, are not etymologically related. (I’ll chat a bit further about brothel—the word and not the commercial endeavor—in an upcoming post.)

Anyway, the newsletter is back, and ready for your subscription, which I recommend. A quick wordorigins.org directory for your use and reference:

• wordorigins.org, “dedicated to the promotion of accurate and well-researched information on etymology and phrase origins for the lay reader”
• the Harmless Drudge blog
• the wordorigins.com forum

And a bonus incentive to check into these resources: The most recent Harmless Drudge also tells us, though indirectly, why “two bits” is both 25 cents and half a nybble.

Permalink