Front Page13 super common idioms that make zero sense until you know where they come from
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/13-idioms-that-make-no-sense-ex1
Vassil Nikolov | Васил Николов"Pieces of eight
Treasures filled with emptiness
Don't let them turn your heart to stone"
(Styx, 1978)
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I _guess_ German THAL (TAL), meaning "valley", is cognate with Slavic ДОЛ (DOL), meaning "depression in terrain made by running water", and ДОЛИНА (DOLINA), meaning "valley", as well as with English DALE and DELL.
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«Chances are you’ve never heard of the place.»
Myself, I had read about the place.
I think I even had read about the dark 20th century part of its history...
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DrWebHow ‘y’all’ took over modern English : NPR
The word “y’all” has spread beyond the South, thanks in part to its blend of polite respect and folksy inclusivity. Here, a golf tournament volunteer holds a “Hush Y’all” sign at the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic in Mobile, Ala., in 2012. Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images“Y’all means all” has emerged as a slogan of support for immigrants and marginalized groups. In this 2018 photo, Ricardo Gámez of El Paso holds a sign bearing the words at the Tornillo Port of Entry in Tornillo, Texas, as medical professionals called for quick reunification of some 2,700 migrant children with their families. Paul Ratje / AFP via Getty ImagesJuly 16, 20255:00 AM ET, Heard on All Things Considered
By Bill Chappell 2-Minute Listen Transcript
Sorry, yinz. Fuhgeddaboudit, you guys: In the past 20 years or so, “y’all” has gone from being a Southernism to become America’s favorite way to use the second person plural, according to linguists.
“Y’all has won,” says Paul E. Reed, a linguist at the University of Alabama who studies Southern American English and Appalachian English.
Admirers appreciate y’all’s tidiness and utility. In particular, Reed says, young people across the U.S. seem to love y’all.
“It’s expanded much more outside of the South” among people who are under 40 years old, he says.
Long-term migration patterns have also helped y’all spread, from Black Americans who brought it with them out of the South during the Great Migration, to Northerners and others who have more recently adopted the term after moving to the South.
“It feels like home when I hear it,” says Kelly Elizabeth Wright, an assistant professor of language sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who grew up in Tennessee. “It’s from where I was raised. But it makes me feel included and welcome. And I think that’s part of why people are embracing it, because it has this capacity to make others feel included and welcome.”
Where did y’all come from?
“It’s essentially as old as American English in a lot of ways,” Wright says.
The word has thrived because it’s utilitarian, filling a gap in standard English. We use y’all — and relatives like yinz (for those in Pittsburgh) and youse — because the language has long lacked a satisfying plural pronoun for “you.”
“Basically, all of the non-mainstream varieties are better than the mainstream variety, because ‘you’ being for plural is confusing,” Reed says.
There are competing (and in cases, complementary) ideas about y’all‘s origin. Many U.S. linguists believe that the American version of y’all likely developed from two sources that reinforced one another, according to Wright and Reed. They use technical terms like simultaneity and calque to describe it; the idea is that one path began in Britain, and the other in West Africa.
2-Minute Listen Transcript
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: How ‘y’all’ took over modern English : NPR
#2025 #America #Books #History #Language #NationalPublicRadio #NPR #Reading #Sayings #Southern #UnitedStates #WordHistory #YAll
ChrisHave you ever wondered why the word ‘sneeze’ is spelled the way it is? Well, buckle up, because it’s a wild story! Back in the Middle Ages, the word was ‘fnese’. But here’s the twist: someone made a silly mistake and thought the ‘f’ sounded like the long medieval ’s’. So, they wrote down ‘sn-‘. Can you imagine?
And here’s another interesting fact: ‘fneezing’ sounds much more like a proper, nasal sneeze than ‘sneezing’.
#WordHistory #MiddleAges #Etymology #SillyMistakes #NasalSneeze
{:ok, "Joel Jucá"}I’ve asked ChatGPT what’s the origin of the word OK. I found the replies quite interesting!
The first output was a bit big, so I asked for a shorter, tweet-size version:
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The origin of "OK" is debated, but theories include it coming from "Old Kinderhook" (a political slogan), the Choctaw word "okeh," or as an acronym for "Orl Korrect." "OK" is now a widely used term signifying approval, agreement, or acceptance in English. #WordHistory
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I liked the Choctaw word “Okeh” 😄 I might adopt it.
EH LuptonApropos of today's #WritingWonders, here's a piece of trivia. "Nostalgia" comes from the Greek 'nostos' (returning home) and 'algos' (pain). However, the term itself was coined in 1688 by a German doctor as a calque of 'heimweh.' It was for many years an actual medical diagnosis that people died of. It didn't take on its current meaning until around 1920.