ArcaMax

Why is a clam happy? Why is someone who stops drinking alcohol said to be "on the wagon"? Why do people "go to pot"?

We use "old saws" like this every day, but rarely do we "pull out all the stops" to uncover their origins.

The key to "happy as a clam" can be found in the original form of this expression -- "happy as a clam at high tide." ...Read more

With the help of Tom Dalzell's deliciously wicked book "The Slang of Sin" (Merriam Webster, $20), let's smoke out the origins of slang terms for marijuana.

"Reefer" first appeared in the popular song "Reefer Man," recorded by Don Redman in 1931. Some say "reefer" is an Anglicized version of the Spanish "grifa," a Mexican slang word for ...Read more

The mail carrier was juggling a passel of parcels.

In a way, that sentence is redundant. For "passel" is a shortening of "parcel." In fact, "passel" is one of a whole passel of English words formed by dropping the "r" from an existing word.

Today, we think of "parcel" as a package or a piece of something, such as land. But an older meaning ...Read more

You've probably heard the joke about a Southerner visiting Harvard for the first time. When he asks a professor, "Can y'all tell me where the library's at?" the snobby scholar sniffs, "At Hahvahd, we refrain from concluding our sentences with prepositions."

"Well, then," replies the Dixie dweller, "can you tell me where the library's at, ...Read more

It's the season of Halloween, so this column is going straight to the "devil."

Even though "devil" seems to contain the word "evil," the two words are unrelated. "Evil" descends from the Old English "yfel." By contrast, "devil," which first appeared in English during the 1100s, is derived from the Greek "diabolos" (slanderer, accuser).

When ...Read more

What in tarnation is the origin of "tarnation"?

You might be surprised to learn that "tarnation" is a variant of "eternal." During the 1600s, one meaning of "eternal" was "damned" or "infernal." In Shakespeare's "Othello," for instance, the character Emilia refers to an "eternal villain."

A century later, people started dropping the "e" from...Read more

They lurk like menacing demons on the fringes of our linguistic campfire. Watching and scowling from the dark woods, they wait for their chance to leap into our vocabularies.

Yes, folks, they're the nonwords -- those diabolical distortions and deviations that occasionally defile our mouths and pens.

Their satanic leader is "irregardless," a ...Read more

Today, some feedback on recent columns...

In a July offering on early American speech, I blithely wrote that colonial travelers reported a surprising uniformity in American language. Bob Chapman of Newington, Connecticut, wrote to challenge that generalization, citing persuasive evidence from a 1998 biography of lexicographer Noah Webster by ...Read more

Q: What's the deal with people using "flounder" when they really mean "founder"? Has it become such a common misuse that it's now acceptable? -- Sandra Duncan, San Jose, California

A: I'm not gonna flounder or founder here. The answer to your question is an unwavering and unsinkable "No!"

"Flounder" means "to struggle, to thrash about wildly...Read more

Today, renowned paleontologist U. Stew Mean enters his laboratory to examine linguistic fossils -- words whose archaic meanings still survive in modern terms and phrases. Let's watch as he examines his first specimen...

Hmmm. Tennis players call a serve that clips the net tape but still lands in the service box a "let ball." Is this because ...Read more

Several readers have asked me to clarify the proper use of "bring" and "take." Newcomers to New England, where I live, seem particularly dismayed at the misuse of these two verbs by us Yankees.

Jack McDonough, who moved to Connecticut from Pittsburgh, writes: "New Englanders say, 'They are going to bring something to another location rather ...Read more

Loyal members of the Word Guy Blooper Patrol have been scurrying around all summer to find errors in publications and other printed matter. Can you spot the blots they've discovered?

1. From a cocktail menu: "If you don't see something to peak your interest, we'll gladly make your request." I'll have a Mountain Dew on the rocks.

2. "We are ...Read more

"The snowstorm cometh." "Thou goest into the night."

Modern writers and speakers occasionally dust off archaic forms like these to impart a mock heroic tone, to evoke a poetic mood or simply to have fun.

Deployed judiciously and sparingly, these linguistic fossils can imbue your prose with class or sass. Who among us hasn't tossed around an ...Read more