487: boy Apr 8, 2016

'Boy' is not an insult or derogatory term by any means, yet the word may easily be used in a demeaning or belittling way, by nature of its definition and the connotations thereof. This was truer still back in the original, middle English sense of the word, which was used to denote a male servant.

487: jaywalking Apr 7, 2016

Jaywalking isn't something too serious in most cases, but it is illegal. Jaywalking-laws were heavily influenced by propaganda made by car companies in the 1910's to prevent people from walking in the streets. The street used to be a place for everyone but constant car accidents reflected badly on car-manufacturers. In the early 20th century, 'jay' was an insult, similar to modern 'retard', but the term 'jaywalking' became so common that it is used in legal documents.

486: bidet Apr 6, 2016

Plenty of bathrooms, especially in Europe, have bidets. 'Bidet' comes from mid 17th century word which in Old French literally meant ‘pony,’ which comes from the verb 'bider' meaning ‘to trot’. There's no consensus about the origin for that, although some have suggested that position one assumes riding a pony is reminiscent of using a bidet.

485: Dutch Influence in NYC Apr 5, 2016

The Dutch have had quite an influence over New York City in the 17th century. The borough, Bronx, was named for the (European) owner of the land, Jonas Bronck-a Dutch man who owned the land in the 1600's. When he gave up the land, the spelling changed. 
Manhattan is based off of the Dutch Mannahatta, which itself is based off of the Algonquin word for the land. 'Manhattan' is the first Native American place-name known to be recorded by Europeans. 
Staten Island, which is an interpretation of the Dutch named "Staaten Eylandt" which literally means "States Island", in honor of the Dutch parliament known as the Staten-Generaal.

483: angst Apr 4, 2016

The English word 'angst' was directly adopted from German in the 1920's. But why?–The closest equivalent from romantic origin is 'anguish', but when translators attempted to translate Kierkegaard and then Freud, they did not want to settle. Were it not for these great thinkers, there would be much more difficulty than there already is surrounding expressing one's own emotions.

482: filibuster Apr 3, 2016

Nowadays, 'filibuster' carries the connotation to politics and legal assemblies, but it did not start out that way. It comes from the 18th century French word, 'flibustier', which first applied to pirates pillaging the Spanish colonies in the West Indies, ultimately from the Dutch, 'vrijbuiter'. In the mid 19th century (the term was used to denote Americans who incited revolution in several Latin American states. Soon after the verb was used to describe tactics employed to sabotage congressional proceedings.

481: naked versus nude Apr 2, 2016

Naked is derived from the Old English word 'nacod' and has Germanic ties to the related modern word 'naakt' from Dutch and 'nackt' from German. These words come from an Indo-European root shared by Sanskrit with the word 'nagna' and Latin's 'nudus'. 'Nude' which also comes from an Indo-European root (originating from 'nudus') is understandably similar in meaning to 'naked'. Nevertheless, the original, Middle English meaning was ‘plain, explicit’, and only gained the modern sense in the 18th century.

480: Irregardless Apr 1, 2016

What is and is not a word is in constant debate, and really ought to stay there. Slangs get added to the dictionaries every year, giving them academic validity, but all of them were words in the eyes of the populous far beforehand. 'Irregardless' is now a word, defying all argument and even logical sense, since 'regardless' is already made negative by 'less' and needs no prefix. Still, by common usage, this word, perhaps a subconscious blend of 'irrespective' and 'regardless' exists officially in the eyes of academia, but existed long before.

479: laboratory Mar 31, 2016

Experiments can be entertaining, and intellectually stimulating, but that comes at a price of hard work. In fact, the work involved is the most lexically obvious part. 'Laboratory' is derived from the medieval Latin word, 'laboratorium', which is ultimately formed from the Latin 'laborare' meaning ‘to labor’.

478: Burgle, Rob, and Steal Mar 30, 2016

There is often confusion over the differences between 'burgle', 'rob', and 'steal', and although they are similar, for the sake of clarity it is important to know how they are not the same. 'Burgle' is short for 'burglarize', and involves entering a building to perpetrate a crime, which may involve stealing i.e. thieving something. 'Robbery' is a specific type of stealing, but to fit the definition, one must employ threats or force.

477: Computer Mar 29, 2016

Today, it is very difficult to go anywhere without hearing about computers. Although the electronic has not existed even 100 years, the word is fairly old. The first recorded use of 'computer' in reference to a person who computers was in 1613. The word is known to have been used to refer to a machine since 1869. 'Computer' was used to denote the electronic device first in 1946; before then it was called a "Turing-Machine".

475: Order of Adjectives Mar 27, 2016

In English, there are rules which everyone follows but few people realize. When ordering adjectives, there is a precise order which speakers follow in order to sound normal and avoid confusion, as follows from first to last:
quantity or number, quality or opinion, size, age, shape, color, proper adjective, and purpose or qualifier––such as the sentence:
"Four silly large old round blue Argentinian sagely men rode bikes".

"Four sagely men" almost certainly sounds better to any native than "sagely four men" for no other reason than: that's just how it works.

476: corridor Mar 28, 2016

The word 'corridor' evolved over time from the original Latin-meaning. In the 1500's the word corridor was the military term for a strip of land along a ditch. from Latin currere ‘to run’ and actually means ‘running place’. The word comes though French, via the Italian, 'corridoio' meaning ‘running place,’ ultimately from the Latin 'currere' meaning 'to run'. The current sense of ‘a long passage in a building’ dates from the early 1800's.

474: Sixpack Mar 26, 2016

When speaking about an especially toned man one might refer to his six-pack, relating his chest to cans of beer or soda. In French, one might instead refer to his "tablettes de chocolat", referring to the shape of a chocolate-bar. It would seem that across cultural lines, terms to describe fitness are unhealthy parts of a diet.

473: sarcasm Mar 25, 2016

Everyone knows sarcasm; all comedy would be entirely different without it. What not everyone knows is where it originates. The word came to English in the mid 1500's, adopted from either the French, 'sarcasme', or through late Latin. Whichever, the word ultimately derives from the late Greek word, 'sarkasmos', which meant ‘gnash the teeth, speak bitterly". It was the evolved version of the Greek, 'sarkazein' meaning a far more extreme ‘tear flesh'.

472: daisy Mar 24, 2016

The sun has always had great significance in the development of civilizations, and that effects some words to be created. 'Daisy' is an Old English compound, from the words, 'dæges ēage' which means ‘day's eye’, which was given on account of the way in which flower opens in the morning, then closes at night.

471: XOXO Mar 23, 2016

If not from personal experience, then from entertainment, most people know the abbreviation xo for "kiss and hug". According to the Oxford English dictionary, the first recorded use of an x was to represent a kiss was found in a letter from the Naturalist, Gilbert White, in 1763.

470: Strong Verbs Mar 22, 2016

"Sing, sang, sung" are some forms of one of many verbs which would prove useful to anyone who wished to confuse children and non-Native speaker. English is full of these exceptions––right‽ Nope; this is not an exception. Verbs like this, in which the stem changes to show tense instead of having suffixes added (like 'd' or 't'), are called "strong-verbs". Strong-verbs tend to follow similar patters, such as the past tense of all these words having an 'a': 'swam', 'sang', 'rang', 'began', 'ran' and so forth. Almost all of these kinds of verbs date back to the patterns of Old English conjugation.

469: muse and mosaic Mar 21, 2016

Muses by nature inspire art and creativity. Moreover, the word 'muse' has inspired how we think about art less directly. 'Music' derives from the Greek word "mousikē (tekhnē )" which means ‘(art) of the Muses,’ ultimately from 'mousa', the word for ‘muse’. Likewise, 'mosaic' derives from the French 'mosaïque', which gets its origins from the Greek 'mousa'.

468: Adding of Words Mar 20, 2016

Statistically, a new word is added to the dictionary every two hours, which is to say that in a year, almost 4000 new words are added. This could be from anywhere, but usually it is a word belonging to pop-culture, or it is borrowed from another language. Of course, words are dropped from dictionaries all of the time from lack of popular usage.