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etymology

Joy

People share how badly named things should be renamed and it's an absolute riot

Contractions = "birthquakes" and jet skis = "boatercycles."

Photo by Qurratul Ayin Sadia on Unsplash

Dentures really should be called substitooths.

Language is a fascinating thing to explore. Where words come from, how things are named, the way sayings and slang are constantly being invented—it's all great fun to plunge into.

But sometimes a deep dive into words and language reveals missed opportunities as we contemplate what a thing should be called instead of what it is.

Reddit user johnnylgarfield asked, "What is badly named, and what is a better name for it?" and hoo boy did the wordsmiths deliver.

Anything that could have "Otto" in it should

"Otto Preminger wrote his own biography and failed to title it Otto-Biography.

Once in a lifetime pun, and he just threw it away." – hippo717

"I saw an automatic car wash with the name "Otto's automatic carwash"

The fact it wasn't called an ottomatic carwash still hurts me." – ShadowVader

Man taking a "boatercycle" out for a spin.

Photo by Yuriy Bogdanov on Unsplash

Alternate names for everyday things that we should seriously consider

"I keep seeing people say that contractions should be birthquakes." – ssssobtaostobs

"Dentures. Should be Substitooths" – donkeyknuckles

"Any bacon alternative that is not named Fācon is an abomination." – RitaPoonismysister

"Jet ski. Dumb name. Obviously it is a Boatercycle." – KYbywayofNY

"Hemorrhoids should be asteroids obv." – UncleDuude

"Olives should be Greece’s Pieces." – rmg18555

Words that just shouldn't be the way they are, on principle

"Abbreviation should be a much shorter word. Dyslexia should also be easier to spell."– Masked_Daisy

"Lisp" shouldn't make me lisp." – rhaegar89

"And why isn't palindrome a palindrome?" – slimfastdieyoung

"Why is a fear of palindromes aibohphobia?!?" – 1nonspecificgirl

"The same reason the fear of big words is hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia." – redwolf1219

"The word for your condition is also your exposure therapy!" – quaffee

A beautiful flutterby.

Photo by Calvin Mano on Unsplash

How about two things that should simply be swapped?

"I'm not the first to say it, but 'pick-up artists' and 'garbage men' should swap titles." – GGAllinPartridge

"A driveway should be a parkway and a parkway should be a driveway." – scottcmu

"And cookies and bacon should switch since you bake cookies but cook bacon." – cwx149

"Butterflies should be Flutterbys." – genderlawyer

A whole thread just for the weather folks

"Weather forecast is boring. Weather prophecy is awesome." – dire18

"Atmospheric foretelling." – uneducated_sock

"Precipitation Prognostication" – VonBrewskie

"As the atmospheric oracles have foretold, 'tis raining." – Shi-Rokku

"Meteoracles*" – HauntedHippie

"You mean the skyentists?" – illfygli

"Murder of crows" can stay.

Photo by Qurratul Ayin Sadia on Unsplash

And everyone's favorite, the naming of animal groups

"Why is a group of squid called a shoal when it should be called a squad?" – xdark_realityx

"A squid squad? Nice.

A crow crew

A whale wall

A swan swarm

A bat batch

A lobster cluster

and of course

A group of groupers" – loopywolf

"Cloister of oysters" – itsmarvin

"A Murder of Crows. It should be a CawCawphony." – EscapedCapybara

"A murder of crows goes so unfathomably hard tho, it can stay." – mrspuffispeng

"The committee on groups of bird names are the best in the business. They put everyone else to shame. Murder, curiosity, charm, kettle, mural, cast, parliament. Why even compete?" – remeard

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humor

Pop Culture

These fun facts about how 5 well-known things got their names are blowing people's minds

Did you know that the name "Idaho" was made up by a con artist who tried to pass it off as a Native American word?

Photo by Karen Green on Unsplash, Merriam-Webster/Facebook

From how Idaho got its name to why we capitalize "B" in "dB," here are some fascinating factoids.

The "I was today years old when I learned" meme might be a bit overdone at this point, but thanks to the random factoids people share on the internet, it's a near-daily reality. Rarely do we go an entire day without seeing some surprising, delightful or head-scratching piece of info cross our feeds.

Let's take the etymology of words, for example. Did you know that the word "jumbo" originated from an exceptionally large elephant named "Jumbo," and not the other way around? Or that the word "muscle" comes from the Latin musculus, meaning "little mouse," because the Romans thought that muscles moving looked like mice running under the skin?

It's fun to see where things come from, but sometimes we can be surprised by an origin that we thought for sure couldn't be right, but actually is. For instance:

Michelin star ratings for fancy restaurants come from the Michelin tire company.

Yes, really. The assumption many of us have been operating under is that Michelin the restaurant review guide must have been founded by some hoity toity French restaurant critic and not the tire company with the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man mascot. Yet here we are, being all wrong.

They don't even try to hide it, so it's surprising that many of us don't know this. The logo and the Michelin man are right there at the top of the Michelin guide website, and the story of how the guide came about is shared on the About Us page:

"It all started in Clermont-Ferrand in central France in 1889, when brothers Andre and Edouard Michelin founded their eponymous tire company, fuelled by a grand vision for the French automobile industry at a time when there were fewer than 3,000 cars in the country. In order to help motorists develop their trips - thereby boosting car sales and in turn, tyre purchases - the Michelin brothers produced a small guide filled with handy information for travellers, such as maps, information on how to change a tyre, where to fill up on petrol, and wonderfully - for the traveller in search of respite from the adventures of the day - a listing of places to eat or take shelter for the night."

The Michelins gave away the guide for free until one of them saw a tire shop using them to prop up a workbench. They decided to demonstrate the value of the guide by charging money for it. They also started sending mystery diners to review restaurants anonymously, and over the next hundred years they'd hone the star rating system that restaurants now aspire to impress with.

The "Guinness" of The Guinness Book of World Records is actually the same Guinness as the beer company.

Similar story here—who knew this was the same Guinness? Only this time, the offshoot was founded not by Guinness himself but by British engineer and industrialist Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of the Guinness Brewery. He conceived of the idea in the early 1950s to satisfy bar patrons who asked trivia questions.

The impetus was Beaver himself getting into an argument over what was the fastest game bird in Europe during a shooting match. But he couldn't find the answer in any reference books. So he decided to create a book with the help of a couple of sports journalists, and the Guinness Book of World Records was born.

The first book was 190 pages and had 4,000 entries. As of 2022, more than 60,000 Guinness world records had been catalogued in the world records database.

The reason the "B" in dB, the abbreviation for "decibel," is capitalized is because it's named after Alexander Graham Bell.

This is one that came out of left field for a lot of folks. How many years did we spend in school without learning this simple fact?

Remember Hansen's Natural soda? It morphed into Monster.

If you were a child of the 80s or 90s, and especially if you had parents who were anti-Big Soda or anti-high fructose corn syrup, you probably drank your fair share of Hansen's Natural soda.

If you weren't paying close attention, you may not know that in 2012, Hansen's Natural Corporation officially changed its name…to Monster Beverage Corporation. That's right, as in Monster energy drinks. Apparently, they found that energy drinks had become their bread and butter, so they leaned into it full force.

Talk about a wild pendulum swing of a rebrand.

"Idaho" was made up by as sketchy congressional delegate who tried to pass it off as a Native American word

There are some unclear spots in the story, but the gist is that back in 1860, the Western territory of that would become Colorado was soon to become a state and needed a name. Congress wanted the state to have a Native American name and someone suggested Idaho, a name allegedly coined by congressional delegate George M. Willing, who claimed it was a Native American word from the Shoshone that meant "Gem of the Mountains." It wasn't and it didn't. He totally made it up.

Congress approved "Idaho" as the name for Colorado at first, but then took it back after they found out it wasn't actually a Native American name. (Did they then choose a Native American name? No, they went with the Spanish name of Colorado.)

In the meantime, someone had named a steamboat in the Pacific Northwest "Idaho," and then some mines got named after the steamboat, and after a few years and several "named after" iterations, people forgot that Idaho was a fake, made-up word, and Congress gave the state its name.

And now, Idaho is not only a state but the last name of a fan-favorite character in one of the best loved sci-fi stories of all time that takes place 10,000 years into the future. A conman's word forever immortalized. God bless America.

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fun facts

Education

Shampoo, nightmare, muscles, jumbo — the unexpected origins of 11 everyday words

The etymology of "dog" remains a strange mystery.

Photo by Lisa Therese on Unsplash

The word "jumbo" literally comes from an elephant.

The evolution of language is fascinating, and the etymology of specific words can be a fun little trip through human history as well as human creativity.

Many English words are derived from Greek and Latin, but other European languages make up a good chunk of our language as well. The roots of some words can surprise us, and so can the way certain words came to be. And in some cases, what we don't know can be just as surprising as what we do.

Enjoy diving into the history of 15 words we use every day.

1. Dog

Dog is often one of the first words babies learn to say, and it's one of the first kids learn to spell. But don't let its simplicity fool you. This word is truly a mystery.

The word "dog" comes from dogca, a very rarely used Old English word, but how we started using it as our everyday name for canines, no one knows. "Its origin remains one of the great mysteries of English etymology," according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.

Even more interestingly, no one knows the origins of the Spanish word for "dog" ("perro"), nor do they know the origins of the Polish ("pies") or Serbo-Croatian ("pas") words for our canine friends, either. Who knew dogs were so enigmatic?

2. Nightmare

It's obvious where "night" comes from in "nightmare," but what about "mare"? Surely, were not referring to a female horse here.

Horse, no. But female, yes. Female goblin, to be precise. In Old English, mare means "incubus, nightmare, monster; witch, sorcerer." And "nightmare" started being used around 1300 to refer to "an evil female spirit afflicting men (or horses) in their sleep with a feeling of suffocation." Yikes. Thankfully, now it's just any old bad dream.

3. Jumbo

We've all seen animals named for words with certain meanings, but here we have the opposite. The word "jumbo" came from a large elephant who lived at the London Zoo. Zookeeper Anoshan Anathjeysari named him "Jumbe," the Swahili word for "chief." But his status as one of the largest African bush elephants in Europe in the 19th century caused his nickname, Jumbo, to become synonymous with enormousness.

Run, little mouse, run.

Photo by Anastase Maragos on Unsplash

4. Muscle

The Latin word musculus means "little mouse." As hilarious as it sounds, they thought the movement of muscles looked like little mice scurrying under the skin, hence the origin. Kinda ick to think about, but also logical, so here we are.

5. Quarantine

Ah, a word with which we are all familiar, thanks to COVID-19. But do we know what it really means?

If you understand roots, you may guess that "quar" might have something to do with the number four, and you'd be right. In Latin, quadraginta means a period of 40 days. Our usage of "quarantine" to mean isolation from others comes from the Venetian policy of ships coming into port from plague-stricken countries in the late 1300s to remain in port for 40 days before letting people off. The usage to mean any period of time in isolation began being used in the 1600s.

6. Mortgage

Most of us grow up not really understanding what a mortgage is until we buy our first house, but even then, most of us don't know what the word literally means. It comes from Old French, mort gaige, literally meaning "death pledge."

HAHAHAHAHA. Death pledge. Mortgage. That's funny.

However, it doesn't mean you're tied to the debt til you die, even if it feels like it. The death part means the deal dies either when you pay it off or when you become unable to pay. Doesn't really change the fact that it feels a bit like you're signing your life away when you buy a house, though.

What does a ball of yarn have to do with "clue"?

Photo by Philip Estrada on Unsplash

7. Clue

Oddly enough, "clue" comes from a misspelling (or alternate spelling from before standardized spelling was a thing) of the word "clew," meaning a ball of yarn.

The word itself comes from German, but its usage points to the Greek myth in which Ariadne gives Theseus a ball (or clew) of yarn to help him escape the labyrinth. Now we use it to refer to anything that helps us solve a mystery.

8. Nice

The word "nice" is nice and simple, right? It's the most basic word we use for "pleasant," a definitively positive word. But this seemingly simple word has been through quite the trek in its etymology.

From the Latin nescius, meaning "ignorant, unaware," it was used to mean "timid" or"faint-hearted" before the year 1300. A couple hundred years later, it had morphed to "fussy, fastidious" or "dainty, delicate." In another 100 years, it changed to "precise, careful." Tack on another few hundred years and we're at "agreeable, delightful," and from there it was only short jaunt to "kind, thoughtful."

What a nice journey from insult to compliment.

9. Shampoo

I would have bet money that the word "shampoo" was French in origin, but nope. It's Hindi, coming from the term champo, and the original meaning was "to massage, rub and percuss the surface of (the body) to restore tone and vigor." It's only been used to refer specifically to lathering and washing out strands of hair or carpet since the mid 1800s.

10. Torpedo

Literally Latin for a stingray. As in the marine animal. That comes from the root word torpere, which means "be numb," since a ray's sting can numb you. It doesn't become the word for a propelled underwater explosive until the last couple hundred years.

11. Ambidextrous

We know that left-handedness was seen negatively throughout much of human history, but even the word that means "able to use both hands equally" has a right-handed bias baked into it. The medieval Latin ambidexter literally means literally means "right-handed on both sides."

Isn't English fun?

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language

Joy

Viral song hilariously imagines naming other things the way we named 'pineapple'

A clever, catchy and slightly chaotic take on the English language.

@thejazzemu/TikTok

Would you like to slice some hotdoglemons into your morninggravel?

The way words get added to a language is an endlessly fascinating topic. Most English root words originate from Latin and Greek, but we also excel at borrowing from languages around the world.

Some of our words are just weird, though. For instance, "pineapple." Rather than calling the delicious yellow fruit with pokey leaves "ananas" like most of the world, our ancestors apparently took a look at one and decided, "Eh, kinda looks like a pinecone. But it's clearly a fruit. How about we call it a 'pineapple'?"

A video creator who goes by @thejazzemu made a hilarious song exploring what would happen if we named other words the way we named "pineapple"—by combining two words with "minimal conceptual link"—and it's a silly feast of musical and etymological brilliance.

Take the word "curtain" and change it into "windowwink." So much more fun and descriptive. What about calling a banana a "hotdoglemon" instead? Utterly delightful.

Watch how the Jazz Emu pineapple-izes several English words in a clever, catchy and chaotically over-the-top song:

@thejazzemu
The most OFFENSIVE word in the English Language? #offense #word #language #cancelculture #pineapple #linguistics #fyp #foryou #help

People have tuned in millions of times to view the video, and the comments on YouTube explain why.

"Morninggravel almost made me spit out my morninggravel," wrote Steve.

"This is my favorite sound-dance. When I'm on the poop-throne, in the rain-box, or at my money-slaver, I enjoy listening to it. Gets the meat-paddle-tips tapping," wrote Joshua Shupe.

"'When every other language said ananas English panicked and mentally combined the concept of a pine cone with frikkin’ apple' is a structurally-delicious sentence," shared Ashanna Redwolf.

"Damn....why is this song so catchy? Also, why am I so entranced by this 'dance' that goes along with it?" wrote ChrisJMP88.

Seriously, though. We need a full-length version on Spotify, please.

Believe it or not, the actual history of the word "pineapple" is even weirder than what is relayed here. According to Merriam-Webster, the seeded part of a pine tree that we now refer to as a pinecone actually used to be called a "pineapple." Yes, really. So the word pineapple actually predates pinecone—it just happened to stick to the fruit.

Why would a pinecone be called a pineapple in the first place? Merriam-Webster explains that the practice of calling any foreign fruit, vegetable or nut an "apple" stems from ancient times. For example, a peach was first known as a "Persian apple," and a pomegranate's initial name meant "an apple with many seeds." So even though a pinecone wasn't technically a fruit, it was still referred to as a "pineapple"…that is until it became a pinecone and the fruit forever claimed "pineapple" for itself.

Words are just so wacky. I vote that we just call things whatever we want and let people figure out what we mean.

You can follow the Jazz Emu on YouTube and TikTok.

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Culture

Idioms from around the world that become hilarious when translated into English

Photo by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash

Two donkeys are better than one—'repetition teaches the donkey.'

You probably know what it means to hit the hay, tie the knot or buy a lemon. Maybe you’ve already killed two birds with one stone today, so effortlessly that it was a piece of cake. But to a non-English speaker, using these phrases would probably make you sound crazy … or should I say gone crackers?

That’s the fun thing about idioms. They change depending on the time, place and culture creating them. In other words, they usually sound ridiculous to anyone except those who normally use them.

Looking at turns of phrase in different languages helps us see the world through different eyes. And man does it seem impressive at a party.

Just think, instead of saying “it’s raining cats and dogs,” next time you could incorporate a more Lithuanian take, and say “it’s raining axes.” How metal is that?

It can also be raining old women, barrels, buckets, pipe stems, frogs, female trolls, fire and brimstone … depending on where you’re from.

Some of these idioms from around the world make a lot of sense. Others get so lost in translation, you can’t help but get tickled pink.

Swedish

”Nu ska du få dina fiskar värmda.”

Literal translation: Now your fishes will be warmed.

It's another way of saying someone’s in trouble, or their “goose is cooked.”

The Swedish language is definitely not lacking in the threats department. They also have a saying, “nu har du satt din sista potatis,” which translates to “now you have planted your last potato.”

Imagine hearing Batman say “You’ve planted your last potato, Joker.” Doesn't have quite the intended effect.

Italian

“Avere gli occhi foderati di prosciutto.”

Literal translation: To have one’s eyes lined with ham.

Leave it to the Italians to have food-related phrases. You can use this when someone can’t see what’s right in front of them. It can also be used when someone is blinded by love. Sadly, there is no “ham-colored glasses” idiom.

Icelandic

“Að leggja höfuðið í bleyti.”

Literal translation: To lay your head in water.

You say this when you “need to sleep on something,” or “put your thinking cap on.” This one is hilarious because I cannot fathom getting any mental clarity from holding my head in the water.

Arabic

"At-Tikraar yu’allem al-Himaar.”

Literal translation: Repetition teaches the donkey.

Practice makes perfect, but it especially does for donkeys. Animal-themed wisdom at its finest.

German

"Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof."

Literal translation: I only understand train station.

It's another way of saying “it’s all Greek to me.”

The history of this one is a bit mysterious. One theory is that it originated from WWI soldiers who had only one thing on their mind after getting discharged: returning home. Meaning, they could only comprehend the train station that would lead them there. Others say it refers to tourists new to Germany who have really only learned the German word for “train station.” Which would indicate that everything else is foreign to them.

And let’s not forget “nicht mein bier, nicht meine sorgen,” translating to “not my beer, not my worries.”

(Fun fact: The term “not my circus, not my monkeys” actually stems from a Polish proverb, not an English saying at all.)

Norwegian

“Å snakke rett fra leveren.”

Literal translation: To speak directly from the liver.

When you say something without sugar-coating it, you are speaking directly from the liver. This dates back to a time when the liver was thought to be the magical organ that produced courage. So speaking from the liver is just like speaking from the heart, only down and to the right a little.

Chinese

“Mama huhu.”

Literal translation: Horse horse, tiger tiger.

You can use it to say something is just okay. Not good, not bad, just … meh.

As the story goes, a Chinese painter who, not very good at his craft, created a drawing of an animal that looked sort of like a tiger, and sort of like, you guessed it, a horse. That story actually has a tragic ending that serves as a cautionary tale against carelessness. But nowadays it takes on a lighter connotation.

And like “comme ci, comme ca” in French, “horse horse, tiger tiger” isn’t quite as commonly spoken as non-native speakers would assume.

Language continues to be an ever-evolving and always entertaining way to not only appreciate other cultures, but also note the similarities. Words might change slightly, but ultimately we're all expressing the same things.

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The surprisingly interesting history behind the phrase 'dead as a doornail'

Malcolm P.L./YouTube

A doornail really is deader than a regular nail.

"Old Marley was as dead as a doornail."

Charles Dickens' line from "A Christmas Carol" is probably the most famous example of the phrase "dead as a doornail," but it's certainly not the only one. Shakespeare used it in Henry IV Part 2: "Look on me well: I have eat no meat these five days; yet, come thou and thy five men, and if I do not leave you all as dead as a doornail, I pray God I may never eat grass more." An unnamed poet used the idiom for the first time in print in a poem published in 1350, but it's still not uncommon to hear it used today.

"Dead as a doornail" obviously means dead, deceased, definitively not alive. But why a doornail and not just a nail? All nails are dead by their nature of being metal, right? So why even use a nail at all? Why not "dead as a door" or "dead as a rock"? Those are dead, too. What makes a doornail specifically deader than other dead things?

There's a surprisingly interesting answer to that question. As it turns out there really is a good reason for specifying a doornail to convey being really, truly dead.

YouTube creator Malcolm P.L., who mostly makes videos about the history of armor, shared an explanation as well as a demonstration of what a doornail actually is:

So it turns out that a doornail isn't just a nail in a door, but a nail that cannot be removed and reused. Way back when, nails were made by hand and quite valuable. People would salvage and repurpose nails whenever they could. The way doornails were bent and driven into the backside of a door made it virtually impossible for them to be reused as a nail.

So not only are doornails dead simply because they're nails, but because their future potential for any other use is also dead. They are doubly dead, if you will. Extra deceased.

How many other idioms do we commonly use without knowing their full origins? Let the cat out of the bag? The whole nine yards? Spill the beans? Get someone's goat?

Language is so fascinating. Time to do some Googling.

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14 awesome words we don't have in the English language but that we definitely need

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash, Rose Pereira/Twitter

Do you ever notice that there is beauty to be found in the imperfections of life? That the changes that come with the natural process of growth and decay are something that we should embrace, or even celebrate, instead of fight?

The Japanese have a term for that idea—wabi sabi. A concept that takes a couple dozen words to explain English is summed up in just four syllables in Japanese.

The diversity of human languages can be fun to explore, especially when you come across words or phrases that don't translate directly or that take far more words to describe in your own tongue. There are some things that are named in other languages that we just don't have words for in English.

For instance, here are 14 awesome words that would come in super handy sometimes.

(Note: pronunciations are using English phonetics, which don't perfectly reflect the way they sound in the original languages.)

Arbejdsglæde (Danish)

Pronounced [ah-bites-gleh-the]

The satisfaction, fulfillment, or happiness you get from a job that you love. Literally and simply "job joy" (though no one ever seems to use that phrase in the U.S.).

Backpfeifengesicht (German)

Pronounced [back-fifen-ge-zisht]

A person whose face is just begging to be slapped really hard. Such a useful term.

Cafuné (Brazilian Portuguese)

Pronounced [KAH-foo-neh]

The act of tenderly running your fingers through a loved one's hair. Awww.

Fernweh (German)

(pronounced "feirn-vey")

Literally means "far sick." Homesickness for a place you've never been before. A deeper feeling than simple wanderlust.

Fisselig (German)

Pronounced [fi-sel-ig]

Being flustered to the point of being unable to function. Been there.

Fuubutsushi (Japanese)

Pronounced [foo-boot-soo-shee]

Something—a feeling, scent, or image—that reminds you of or makes you yearn for a particular season. (Pumpkin spice, for example.)

Gezelligheid (Dutch)

Pronounced [ge-zel-lig-hide]

That warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you're hanging out with friends or family whose company you truly enjoy. Something we all missed during lockdowns.

Hyppytyynytyydytys (Finnish)

Pronounced [hyp-ya-teyrna-teyrna-dish]

Seriously the best word ever with the best meaning ever. It means the pleasure and satisfaction you get from sitting on a bouncy cushion. Ha!

Iktsuarpok (Inuit)

Pronounced [Ikt-soo-ar-poke]

The feeling of anticipation when you're waiting for someone to arrive and keep checking the door to see if they're there. A universal phenomenon.

Jijivisha (Hindi)

Pronounced [ji-ji-vi-sha]

The intense desire to live life to its fullest, to continuously live in the highest state of being. Nice.

Kummerspeck (German)

Pronounced [koo-mer--speck]

The weight you gain from emotional overeating. Literally—and fittingly—translates as "grief bacon."

Meraki (Greek)

Pronounced [murr-ahh-key]

Pouring yourself so wholeheartedly into something with soul, creativity, or love that you leave a piece of yourself in your work.

Shemomedjamo (Georgian)

Pronounced [sheh–mo–med–JAH–mo]

That feeling when a food tastes so good you can't stop eating it. Literally translates to "I accidentally ate the whole thing." Perfect.

Tsundoku (Japanese)

Pronounced [Tsoon-doh-koo]

Buying a bunch of books or other reading material and letting them pile up, unread. Now I just feel like Japan is spying on me.

There are countless words like this in various languages around the world, terms that don't simply translate over into English without a whole explanation. But some might be surprised to find that we have words for things in English that we simply don't use all that often. For example, did you know there's a word for that amazing smell that accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather? It's called petrichor. There's also a word for the appealing, wistful mysteriousness of old bookshops—vellichor.

Or how about ultracrepidarian—a person who expresses opinions on matters outside the scope of their knowledge or expertise? We could have used that term about a hundred thousand times this year.

While we're adding these cool foreign words to our lexicon, maybe we should dig a little deeper into English to find words we didn't even know existed. (Then perhaps we can get to work choosing a universal language we can all learn along with our native tongues so we can easily communicate with each other everywhere we go while still retaining our beautiful cultural expressions. Wouldn't that make life on Earth so much easier?)

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