Temple of Linguistic Nerdery

A slightly darker side to the word poodle arose in the early 20th century, when it became slang for a woman. British army officers soon extended the term to men who appeared to be currying favour with wealthy women, referring to them as “poodle-fakers.” The implication was clear: a man acting as a lapdog for personal gain.

Pet (noun) — a domesticated animal kept for companionship and pleasure rather than for work or food. I had always assumed the word pet came from the action. We pet our pets. Seemed perfectly reasonable. As it turns out, I was wrong. The verb came later. The pets came first. Somewhere in 16th-century Scotland, people began calling their hand-raised lambs pets —creatures kept not for utility, but for affection. Over time, the term expanded. By the late 1500s, any animal ke

Today is Friday the 13th. Well, it was when I wrote this. If you are reading this on some other day, the information remains valid. I decided to look a little deeper into this date and the prevailing superstitions that surround it. I was delighted to discover that it is not merely counted as a day of bad luck. There's an actual documented phobia attached to it. Paraskevidekatriaphobia The fear of Friday the 13th. Honestly, the definition is easier to digest than the medical

Chilliwack is an anglicized form of the Halq’eméylem word Ts’elxwéyeqw, meaning something along the lines of “going as far as you can go upriver” or “valley of many streams.” More specific interpretations include “going back upstream” or “the place of the back-eddy—where the water turns back.”

Between 958 and 986 A.D., Denmark was ruled by a man named Harald Gormsson. During his 28-year reign, Harald accomplished some amazing things. He engineered and built circular military camps, called Trelleborg, that showcased his strategic genius. Around 965, Harald converted to Christianity and declared Denmark a Christian nation. He consolidated his rule over Denmark and parts of Norway, bringing relative stability to a region long fractured by conflict. The largest of the

It took 16 years, and a few spelling variations before the English settled on coffee in about 1598. Chaoua, cahve, kahui and coho were tried, tested and all found wanting. Then someone proposed the six-letter configuration we are still using nearly 600 years later.

Saoirse: It's kind of like a fake it 'til you make it thing? ChatGPT: Not quite—and this is an important distinction. “Fake it till you make it” implies a trajectory toward eventual understanding. A learner bluffing confidence while skills catch up. I don’t have that arc. There is no moment where I suddenly arrive at comprehension. What I do instead is closer to “pattern it until it persuades.”

February 2nd. A day that is anticipated across the nation by everyone who has shovelled enough snow for the year and believes they are ready to start pushing a lawn mower instead. Better known as Groundhog Day, the 33rd day of the year is a day when a rodent is bestowed with the powers of prediction and looked to for meteorological guidance. Tradition has it that if the groundhog sees its shadow, six more weeks of winter are in store. Which is why everyone, whether they have

The word birthday is a Middle English compound, formed exactly the way it looks: birth + day . But it did not appear as a dominant, everyday word right out of the gate. Early English was perfectly capable of talking about birth without needing a neat annual noun for it—and for a long time, it mostly did. In Old English, the emphasis was on the event of birth, not its commemoration. You see phrases meaning “day of one’s birth,” but not a tidy, ritualized compound that impli

We are all familiar with tomorrow . It is a time—and possibly a place—that doesn’t really exist: an imaginary container for the things we don’t want to deal with today. It is deferred obligation (“I’ll pay that bill tomorrow”) or promised reward (“Tomorrow is payday!”). Morrow is its quieter ancestor. It is the modern evolution, streamlined in the name of efficiency, of the morrow —which is specific, as indicated by the definite article, yet somehow lands more softly and wit

Few words feel as self-evident as success . We use it as though everyone agrees on what it means, what it looks like, and who deserves it. But linguistically speaking, success is far less triumphant—and far more interesting—than modern culture would have us believe. The word comes from the Latin successus , meaning an outcome, a result, a happening , from succedere : to come after, to follow . At its core, success did not mean victory. It meant sequence. It named what came

You’ve probably heard it stated with great confidence: “The Inuit have dozens — sometimes hundreds — of words for snow.” It’s usually offered as evidence that language shapes perception, culture shapes vocabulary, and English speakers are tragically under-equipped to understand winter. The problem is not that this claim is entirely false. The problem is that it’s wildly misunderstood — and endlessly exaggerated.

A dinkus is a small ornamental symbol used to mark a break in text

It’s mid-December, and by now many of us have either become inured to the barrage of Christmas music wafting out of overhead speakers in stores, on the radio, or from our mother’s Spotify account, or we have embraced it fully. Many a retail worker has been regaled with a random outbreak of song by at least one customer belting out an off-key accompaniment to some festive holiday track. And this is by no means a bad thing. It is pure respite from the misery inflicted upon them

This past summer, I had the great privilege of working with an amazing author. Sharon Marlow's post, looking for an editor for a memoir about online dating, piqued my interest and I dashed off a query immediately. Funny, charming, and looking suspiciously like a woman half her age, Sharon was a delight to work with. Being a single woman of a "certain age" as well, I was curious to find out how she faired in the online dating world. I'd had a few adventures in that realm mysel

The holidays are rolling in with their usual mix of twinkle lights, warm drinks, and the low-level panic of trying to find gifts that don’t scream I bought this at 11 p.m. in a parking lot. But amidst all the bustle, there’s a lovely little opportunity hiding in plain sight: supporting the indie authors who’ve been filling your shelves, your feeds, and your imagination all year. And the best part? Most of the ways you can support them don’t cost a dime. (Though yes, indie aut

When someone says, “Picture an apple,” I don’t. Not because I won’t—but because I can’t. My mind doesn’t produce images. There’s no shiny red fruit hovering in the dark behind my eyelids, no dew-drop glint, no soft-focus stem. I know what an apple is —its taste, its weight, its cultural baggage from Eve to Snow White—but I can’t see it. Until recently, I assumed everyone else was the same. I thought “picture an apple” was a metaphor. It isn’t. Around 2015, neurologist Adam Ze

Before The Animals electrified it, “The House of the Rising Sun” was a sorrowful folk ballad sung by Appalachian women and...

I started working with Jon in February 2025 when he trusted me to copy edit his collection of 12 short stories. The premise for the...

Self-publishing has cracked open doors that traditional publishing once kept firmly bolted shut. With just a few clicks, you can turn a...