Wild Word Friday! In researching the word SARCASM, I discovered that it definitely deserves the title Wild Word. SARCASM isn’t usually a part of my repertoire, but a couple of years ago a person told me that they were going to do something which I knew would hurt the feelings of an elderly person dear…
Wild Word Friday! If you lived thousands of years ago, your choice of clothing materials would have been pretty much limited to animal skins, especially if you lived where winters loomed fierce and cold. A few groups of people wore birdskins (the Aleuts of ancient Alaska, for example), but before anybody figured out how…
Wild Word Friday! Our word today – JUBILEE – comes to us from the ancient Hebrew via a long journey through Europe. Every fifty years, according to a law that has been recorded in the Old Testament book of Leviticus (chapter 25, verse 10): “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty…
Wild Word Friday! SWARD is one of those words seldom heard in modern English. As a noun, it’s used to designate a grass-covered area or a field. As a verb it means to cover or become covered with grass. SWARD traces its roots to an Anglo-Saxon word, sweard, which means a skin or hide. In…
Wild Word Friday! SIMULACRUM means a counterfeit image, a travesty or sham. The simula portion of SIMULACRUM has ancient roots in the Latin word simul, which means together with or likewise. Crum comes to us from the Anglo-Saxon, crump or crumb. Both versions of the word mean bent or crooked. (Did you know that in…
Wild Word Friday! PITCH is one of those words that takes up a third of a column in the dictionary because it has so many meanings. It also has two separate entries in the dictionary because there are two separate and unrelated origins for the word, each with its own group of meanings. Today I’m…
Wild Word Friday! TERMAGANT is a new word to me. I was perusing the dictionary trying to find a reasonable spelling for a word I was using in my current work-in-progress. I’m a terrible speller, and sometimes even Spell Check can’t decipher what I’m trying to write. Then it’s back to the old days and…
Wild Word Friday! You may have noticed that novels about the AMISH People are very popular. The AMISH lifestyle fascinates many people, particularly those who need a break from the fast-paced, hard-edged world we live in today. The AMISH people in the United States live much as they did 200 years ago, and refer to…
Wild Word Friday! When I was growing up, my parents bought my brother and I a board game each year for Christmas. One of my all-time favorites was Clue. You’ve probably played that game and remember hearing (or making) a triumphant announcement that went something like this – “Miss Scarlett with the lead pipe…
Wild Word Friday! When I was a child, one of my very favorite things was visiting my paternal grandparents at their FARM. They had a mean rooster that would chase you if you ventured too close to the chicken coop. Their big black horse would eat an apple right out of your very flat open…
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