Phys.org

Five common English words we don't know the origins of—including 'boy' and 'dog'

English words tell a lot of stories. To get back to their origins, linguists apply the comparative method. Languages are not isolated entities, but belong to linguistic families—English is a west ...
The Conversation

The curious origins of four English expressions – including will‑o’‑the‑wisp and against the grain

The origins of English expressions are often obscure and require deep linguistic and documentary research to be explained. Being phrases, not single words, their intrinsic meanings can be ...
The Conversation

Five common English words we don’t know the origins of – including ‘boy’ and ‘dog’

Detail from Tacuinum Sanitatis, a 14th-century handbook of medieval health. The naming process, the act of naming the items of the world, is as old as the first words spoken by our ancestors. We can ...