Origins Of Popular Jewish Surnames
Correction, Jan. 29, 2014: Some of the sources used in the reporting of this piece were unreliable and resulted in a number of untruths and inaccuracies. The original post remains below, but a follow-up post outlining the errors, as well as further explanation, can be found here. Ashkenazic Jews were among the last Europeans to take family names. Some German-speaking Jews took last names as early as the 17th century, but the overwhelming majority of Jews lived in Eastern Europe and did not take last names until compelled to do so. The process began in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1787 and ended in Czarist Russia in 1844. In attempting to build modern nation-states, the authorities insisted that Jews take last names so that they could be taxed, drafted, and educated (in that order of importance).
The Color Thesaurus
I love to collect words. Making word lists can help to find the voice of my story, dig into the emotion of a scene, or create variety. One of my on-going word collections is of colors.
New Data Show “Gender-Affirming” Surgery Doesn’t Really Improve Mental Health. So Why Are the Study’s Authors Saying It Does? - Public Discourse
A new study appearing last month in the American Journal of Psychiatry concluded that “gender-affirming” surgery is associated with reduced demand for subsequent mental health treatment in a sample of persons diagnosed with “gender incongruence.” Predictably, such news received wide media interest and coverage. And yet even a cursory reading of the study itself tells a far less optimistic story than the media narratives—as well as the authors’ own inexplicable confidence—have offered. Indeed, the analyses would seem to suggest the benefit of a hormonal or surgical course does not outweigh the demonstrable physical and financial costs of such treatments. Future studies might suggest otherwise, but not this one. The study’s shortcomings have nothing to do with the data, nor the methods employed by its authors (and public health researchers) Richard Bränström and John Pachankis.
Writer Creates “Color Thesaurus” To Help You Correctly Name Any Color Imaginable
Ingrid Sundberg, a writer and children’s book illustrator, created a very useful infographic chart for anyone struggling with color names. The writer says that she loves to collect words that can help give her stories variety and depth. Show Full Text “I’ve learned that we all have different associations with color words,” Sundberg told Bored Panda. “For example the color sapphire is a light blue to me (since that’s the color of the sapphire on my engagement ring), but a sapphire can also be a very dark blue.
19 amazing English words we've totally forgotten about
1. Twirlblast A tornado, according to people in the 1700s.
7 Beautiful Words With No Direct English Translation
You know that feeling you get when surrounded by close friends or family -- perhaps gathered around a fireplace after a meal, or chatting on the couch in your pajamas on a Sunday morning? There truly is no word to describe it. Or at least not in English. In Dutch, there's gezellig, which means cozy, but encompasses more than a physical feeling. It is a sort of social coziness.
List of Greek words with English derivatives
This is an incomplete list of Greek words with derivatives in English. There are many English words of Greek origin, with a variety of histories: vernacular borrowing, typically passing through Latin and French; learned borrowing directly from Greek; coinage in post-classical Latin or modern European languages; and direct borrowings from Modern Greek. The words (or suffixes) are in Greek alphabetic order, with tables for the 24 Greek letters, listing thousands of related English words. Transliteration[edit]
Global Latinists by John Byron Kuhner
When Leni Ribeiro Leite stood up in the main auditorium of Memorial Hall this past July, her name and appearance were enough to distinguish her: it’s still unusual on the University of Kentucky campus, where Hispanics make up about one percent of the faculty, to see a Hispanic woman at the lectern. But that was only the beginning of what made this lecture unique. She delivered it entirely in Latin, the ancient language of Caesar and Cicero. And her audience, a hundred strong, understood her and later questioned her about her conclusions, again in Latin. And Ribeiro Leite was lecturing about Latin works written in Brazil, the existence of which would be news to most people, who—if they know what Latin is at all—imagine it vanished long ago, along with gladiatorial games and the sandaled legionnaire.
Color Words
Colour Terms This list contains 168 definitions of obscure colour terms using combinations of 'normal' colours of the rainbow and descriptive adjectives; e.g. cardinal = deep scarlet red; russet = reddish brown. Note that most English speakers outside the U.S. spell colour with the added British 'u' rather than the American version color. Don't worry if the colours (or colors) in your universe don't match up with the definitions I've given for these words, though - I've been known to have skewed perceptions of reality ... I hope you have found this site to be useful.
List of English words of Spanish origin
It is a list of English language words whose origin can be traced to the Spanish language as "Spanish loan words". Many of them are identical in other Romance languages (mainly Portuguese or Italian), but their passage into English is believed to be through Spanish. Most these words came to English from Castilian and American Spanish dialects, which in turn got them from various sources including English ("turista"). However many of the words contained in the list are not used by native English speakers today.
Animal Adjectives
Animal Adjectives While there are other forms of adjectives for animals, by far the greater majority of such words end in -ine; thus the following list deals excusively with this type. The -ine suffix comes from the Latin -inus and forms terms meaning 'of or relating to' or 'of the nature of'. Some of these words are sometimes even used in reference to people: how often have you heard of a woman moving with feline grace, for instance? Note that some animals share the same adjective, for example, badgers, ermines, ferrets, etc. are all musteline, while other animals can be descibed by more than one adjective. Home ~ The Stories ~ Diversions ~ Links ~ Contact
