Every language has certain words and expressions that defy simple translation in other languages. So have dialects. English has no satisfactory term for the American Indian giver (someone who takes…

Equestrian is someone on a horse (as pedestrian is someone on foot); an equestrienne is a woman on a horse (if you must make the distinction); and equine is like…

The various dialects of English differ from the standard language in rough proportion to how long they have had a separate identity. Languages need time to develop in their own…

Equivocate is built on another Latin word meaning equal – aequus (the spelling in English is always equ-) – plus vox, vocis, voice. When you equivocate, you seem to be…

Completely new words are very rare – through from time to time some do arise. One example of a word made entirely by artificial processes is the trade name Kodak,…

Here are some familiar nursery rhymes in an unfamiliar guise – as if composed by a poet who lacked the patience to structure his ideas properly before committing them to…

Cardiologist combines Greek kardia, heart, and logos, science. The speciality is cardiology, the adjective cardiological. So a cardiac condition refers to some malfunctioning of the heart; a cardiogram is an…

From the Anglo-Saxon period down to the 17th and 18th centuries, Latin, as well as being the language of church services, was the international language of culture and religion, and…