Today I

Found Out

Today I found out how ‘gay’ came to mean ‘homosexual’. The word “gay” seems to have its origins around the 12th century in England, derived from the Old French word ‘gai’, which in turn was probably derived from a Germanic word, though that isn’t completely known.  The word’s original meaning meant something to the effect of [...]

Today I found out what a backronym is (also commonly spelled bacronym). In short, a backronym is when you treat a word that is not an acronym as if it was an acronym, constructing a phrase out of the word.  For example: Delta – Doesn’t Ever Leave The Airport Backronyms are often used for humorous effect as [...]

Today I found out the difference between a fact and a factoid.  I have gotten several helpful commenters pointing out recently that perhaps I am using the word “factoid” incorrectly in my articles here, thinking that it means the same as “fact”.  In fact (eh? eh?) , I am not.  But since this is [...]

Today I found out that the word ‘man’ was originally gender neutral, meaning more or less the same as the modern day word “person”.  It wasn’t until about a thousand years ago that the word “man” started to refer to a male and it wasn’t until the late 20th century that it was almost exclusively [...]

Today I found out where the dollar sign ($) comes from.   This symbol first showed up in the 1770’s appearing in documents of English-Americans who had business dealings with Spanish-Americans.  However, it wasn’t until the very early 1800’s that it became popularized, around the same time the first official U.S. dollars were being minted, though [...]

Today I found out that the idiom used for the notion of someone “getting what’s coming to them”, whether good or bad, is actually spelled “just deserts”, not “just desserts”.  The misconception primarily stems from the fact that most people are unfamiliar with the word ‘desert’ (pronounced dizert), which more or less means the same [...]

Today I found out why the toilet is also often called “The Crapper”.  It turns out, it all started with U.S. soldiers stationed in England during WWI.  The toilets in England at the time predominately were made by the company “Thomas Crapper & Co Ltd”, with the company’s name appearing on the toilets.  The soldiers [...]

Today I found out that the word ‘whence’ is pretty much always used wrong, especially by modern day writers. For example, (from the Lord of the Rings, spoken by Elrond):  “The Ring was made in the fires of Mount Doom; only there can it be unmade. It must be taken deep into Mordor and cast back [...]

Today I found out that the medical term for the irrational fear of being buried alive is called Taphophobia, also occasionally spelled Tephephobia which means the same thing.    Taphophobia derives from the Greek “taphos” meaning “grave”. Today this would be considered a somewhat irrational fear.  However, it wasn’t too long ago historically when this wasn’t [...]

Today I found out there is an irony mark in punctuation.  The irony mark specifically is a backwards question mark: ؟ This mark was originally proposed by the 19th century French poet Alcanter de Brahm, also known as Marcel Bernhardt.  Around the same time other “second level” punctuation marks were proposed.   For instance, Tara Liloia and [...]