Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Language
Even admirals can swear like old salts.
LANGUAGE EVOLVES so rapidly that today we can no longer even understand some of the words the American colonists brought with them from Europe or devised to fit their lives in the New World. Here are some startling or amusing examples:
When did we start saying it? And why?
FROM THE OIL FIELDS of Indonesia to the tulip fields of Holland to the rice fields of Brazil, a traveler overhears conversations sounding something like this:
The Curious World of the Trademark
Millions of readers have been pleasured by the writings of John Steinbeck, but there was no joy in the Atlanta headquarters of the Coca-Cola Company when the Pulitzer-prize-winning novelist’s The Wayward Bus reached the executive suite.
“Your body is a temple,” our ancestors told their pubescent youngsters. ‘Now go take a cold bath”
Standards of propriety were lofty indeed
About to die at the untimely age of forty-four in 1883, Dr. George Miller Beard, a Connecticut physician and pioneer in neurology, remarked: “I should like to record the thoughts of a dying man for the benefit of science, but it is impossible.” And with those words, Dr.
Locomotive whistles had a language all their own
The switchmen knew by the whistle’s moansThat the man at the throttle was Casey Jones.
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