Wednesday, March 16, 2016

wEIRD wORD wEDNESDAY




Jettatura:  The casting of an evil eye 
Image result for malevolent stare
Hasma: A charm made to ward off the evil eye

     










Wednesday, March 9, 2016

wEIRD wORD wEDNESDAY



Acersecomic: A person whose hair has never been cut 
     








Monday, March 7, 2016

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

wEIRD wORD wEDNESDAY



Words, like the rest of the world, evolve.  Here are some words whose original meanings you may not recognize.
Source: 


  1. Egregious: It used to be possible for it to be a good thing to be egregious: it meant you were distinguished or eminent. But in the end, the negative meaning of the word won out, and now it means that someone or something is conspicuously bad — not conspicuously good.
  2. Naughty: Long ago, if you were naughty, you had naught or nothing. Then it came to mean evil or immoral, and now you are just badly behaved.
  3. Silly: Meanwhile, silly went in the opposite direction: in its earliest uses, it referred to things worthy or blessed; from there it came to refer to the weak and vulnerable, and more recently to those who are foolish.
  4. Hussy: Believe it or not, hussy comes from the word housewife (with several sound changes, clearly) and used to refer to the mistress of a household, not the disreputable woman it refers to today.


     










Monday, February 29, 2016

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

wEIRD wORD wEDNESDAY



Sometimes, what a word means in one location is completely different from what that same word means in a different place.

Jumper

Image result for british jumper 
British meaning:  a sweater
vs.
North American meaning:  A person who jumps Image result for jump off  






Monday, February 22, 2016