Tag Archives: words

How you can score love in tennis

By Ryan | Published: June 28, 2011

If you’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places, try your local tennis game. Event the most inexperienced player will have no trouble finding love on the court. In tennis scoring, love means zero. This is believed to come from the French word l’oeuf, for egg. The egg shape signifies a round zero, [...]

Lemonade around the world

By Ryan | Published: June 13, 2011

Be mindful, world travelers, when you order a tall glass of cool lemonade. It can mean different things in different parts of the world. It all started with limonade in France. It was simply water with some pure lemon juice added for a spritz of flavour. In french the addition of -ade adds action or [...]

I Eat My Peasen With Honey

By Ryan | Published: May 17, 2011

I’m always interested in how words evolve over time. Nowadays we have the dictionary to settle all disputes about what’s proper or not, but the whole idea of the printed word is relatively new. As languages were created and shared through speaking, much like the telephone game, when the word was finally written down at [...]

Posted in Interesting Facts | Tagged words | 1 Comment

Partridges in Pear Trees – Twelve Facts of Christmas

By Ryan | Published: December 25, 2010

For the first fact of Christmas, I bring you a partridge in a pear tree. That’s how the song goes, but it seems that the pear tree shouldn’t actually be there. Partridges are a bird rarely seen in trees, and a pear tree wouldn’t be a great gift in the middle of winter, being completely [...]

Posted in Interesting Facts | Also tagged animals, myths | 2 Comments

The wisdom of teeth

By Ryan | Published: December 20, 2010

Unfortunately wisdom teeth are on my mind these days, as I’ve got one being a pain in the… jaw. I’m all for the wisdom part though. These molars, usually four, at the very back of the mouth come in at the age of 17 to 25. The origin of the wisdom moniker may come from [...]

Posted in Interesting Facts | Also tagged medical, your body | Leave a comment

Diphthongs and other vowel movements

By Ryan | Published: November 4, 2010

Imagine you were a visiting anthropologist from a different planet, on assignment to “live among the apes”. From the fresh outside perspective, many things about us would be fascinating. Our language, the multitude of sounds that emanate from our little naked-monkey heads, is rather amazing if you stop to think about it. From the corner [...]

Posted in Interesting Facts | Also tagged language, music | 1 Comment

How to use i.e. and e.g. in the correct way

By Ryan | Published: September 10, 2010

When you are writing something (e.g. an article, book, blog) and you want to add some more information (i.e. supplement your text with additional facts) then it’s time to pull out your letters. (i.e. e.g. and i.e.) (e.g. i.e., e.g.) The trouble is knowing which one to use. Having just learned this myself, I shudder [...]

Posted in How-To Lessons | Tagged words | 1 Comment