Wild Word Friday! When I hear the word PALE I usually think of the color of my skin. But there is an older nearly obsolete meaning for the word PALE , which comes to the English language from the Latin word palus, a stake. A PALE was a pointed, narrow, upright piece of wood. Generally,…
WILD WORD FRIDAY! When I hear the word BELFRY, I immediately think of churches and the beautiful sound of bells chiming across a sleepy town, so I was surprised to discover that, originally, a BELFRY was a wooden siege tower, used to help soldiers as they tried to scale and break through the thick stone-walled…
I belong to readers group. We meet once a month, September through May, and we usually read books that fall into the general category of secular literary novels. But for this month, we decided on a book that is a little different from our usual fare. We’re reading Ann Voskamp’s memoir, ONE THOUSAND GIFTS. I’m…
Wild Word Friday! When I was almost eight years old, my family and I were visiting my maternal grandfather. My brother Bob and I called him Granddaddy. He was a wonderful grandfather, a widower, who doted on us grandchildren. While we were at his house, I started feeling rotten, really, really rotten. By the…
Wild Word Friday! It probably won’t surprise you to know that the English language borrowed the word YEN from the Chinese language, the Cantonese dialect. To the ears of an English-speaker, YEN sounds Chinese. During the mid-1800s when Chinese immigration to the United States peaked, they brought the word in-yan with them. In-yan means…
Wild Word Friday! In the Middle Ages, people played a game in which a long sheet of paper was inscribed with a number of short descriptions. A string was attached at each description and the paper was rolled up. A player would choose a string, unroll the paper, and read the description, which would likely…
Wild Word Friday! Last week we talked about the word right. In my family, on my dad’s side, every other person is a LEFTy. Therefore, I can’t get by without giving the word, LEFT, equal billing! And in a family where half the people are LEFT-handed, you learn to accommodate. Especially at the…
Wild Word Friday! RIGHT is one of those words that takes up half a column in my dictionary, but, because this blog is short, I’ll limit my post to one meaning only – the RIGHT that refers to side of your body which “points” east when you’re facing north. I know. That sounds complicated….
End of content
End of content
Get every new post delivered to your Inbox
Join other followers