Language

The very tool we use to communicate urban 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.

Do Most People Struggle To Recognize the Lowercase Letter ‘G’? The letter "G" is one of several English letters that has multiple lowercase versions.

True

Did Merriam-Webster Update Its Entry on ‘Sexual Preference’ After Barrett Hearing? U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett had been described by advocacy groups as “hostile...

True

Does ‘Quarantine’ Originate from the Word ‘Forty’ (Days) in Italian? A "quarantine" separates and restricts the movement of people who were exposed to a contagious...

True

Was the First Known Use of ‘OMG’ Written in a Letter to Churchill? Many may assume the term "OMG" originated with teens and smart phones.

True

Why Is It ‘Cancelled’ in the UK, But ‘Canceled’ in America? Is it true that extraneous letters were dropped from certain words in American English because...

False

Etymology of ‘Tag’ How factual is the claim that the name of the children's game 'tag' originated as...

False

Fascism, Corporations, and Merriam-Webster A popular meme repeated confused and inaccurate claims about the purported links between fascism and...

False

Did the Phrase ‘a Shot of Whiskey’ Originate in the Old West? Anecdotal reports say the expression "a shot of whiskey" came into being when cowboys traded...

False

Is ‘Covfefe’ a Word in Arabic? Yiddish? ‘Antediluvian’? After President Donald Trump mistyped (then deleted) a tweet, some hurried to ascribe meanings to...

False