The difference between a turtle and a tortoise can be confusing: Technically, all turtles, tortoises and terrapins belong ARE turtles and belong to the turtle order Testudines, which comes from the Latin word testa, meaning "shell" But for the most part, people use the word “tortoise” to refer to completely land-dwelling turtle species, while the generic word “turtle”… Continue reading The (Etymological) Difference Between Tortoises and Turtles
One of my favorite things about the English language is how many perfectly innocent-sounding words are a little bit less wholesome than you might expect. Take the word "gym," for instance—that’s gym as in gymnasium, the place where you go to work out, train or play sports. Gymnasium is a Latin word, and originally comes… Continue reading The Naked Truth About “Gymnasium”
The lessons I share here are often classifiable as trivia: little bits of information that are of little consequence outside of being curiosities. You might call them “trivialities"—even though I, and most of you, agree that words and their origins are not trivial and do matter a great deal. Trivia is a Latin word, the… Continue reading The Etymology of Trivia: A Place Where Three Roads Meet
Useless Etymology 