The very tool we use to communicate legends to each other — language — is itself a source of folklore. A number of the words and phrases in use today have interesting origins that have almost become obscured in the mists of time. Equally, our sense of romance leads us to invent unusual origins for commonplace words rather than be satisfied with their mundane beginnings.
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Acronyms Purported origins of cabal, nylon, golf and more. |
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Mistranslations Change the language, change the meaning. |
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Apocrypha Widely believed yet generally not true. |
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Not What You Think Just deserts and strawberries. |
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Colored Perceptions Terms and phrases that derive from color-related words. |
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Offensive Origins Unsavory origins of common words. |
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Documentary Evidence Odd documents. |
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Phrase Craze Strange beginnings of popular phrases. |
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Eponyms Words based on people's names. |
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Place Names How towns and cities came by their names. |
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Foreign Affairs English words borrowed from other languages. |
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Puzzlers Linguistic puzzles unravelled. |
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Literary Legends Works of literature and their creators. |
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Story Time Fanciful backstories given to ordinary words. |
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Mistakes Errors creep in. |
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