Yes. It is. And that surprises most people. When we see a word beginning with un-, we naturally assume there must be a positive form lurking somewhere behind it. Sometimes we’re right. Sometimes English has other plans. In the case of unruly, however, the positive form is very real. Ruly means orderly, obedient, or governed … Continue reading Is the Opposite of Unruly… Ruly?
Historically, wood and would arrive by different routes. Wood comes from Old English wudu, meaning timber, forest, or material from trees, a thoroughly physical word tied to building and fuel. Would comes from wolde, the past form of willan, meaning to want or wish. One grew out of the landscape; the other grew out of … Continue reading Tom’s Fun with Words – Would a Woodchuck Chuck…
Seam and Seem are homophones. They sound identical, which in some way is English’s way of laughing at us. They look as though they should be related, and for a moment they even share Old English soil, but beneath that overlap they are doing entirely different jobs. A seam is unapologetically physical. It comes from … Continue reading Tom’s Fun with Words – Seam/Seem
Terrific did not begin life as a compliment. It comes from the Latin terrificus, meaning “that which causes terror,” built from terrere (to frighten) and facere (to make). When the word entered English in the seventeenth century, a terrific event was something that rattled the nerves, a violent storm, a massive explosion, a spectacle that … Continue reading Tom’s Fun with Words – Terrific
The Quantum Entanglement Cosmology (QEC) Theory posits that the universe functions as a closed-loop gravitational system in which black holes act not as destructive endpoints, but as “intake nodes” in a vast, quantum-entangled network woven through spacetime foam. Matter and energy drawn into a black hole do not cease to exist; instead, they are channeled … Continue reading Quantum Entanglement Cosmology
The prefix di- comes from Greek and means “two” or “double,” appearing in words like divide and dioxide. That's obvious (duh), but what the heck is a lemma? Sounds like a bean or wooly-haired critter or something. Well, from Greek again, lemma means “a proposition or choice.” Thus, "di-lemma" literally means “two propositions” or “two … Continue reading Tom’s Fun with Words – Dilemma
Today we’re going to talk about con. That small Latin prefix means “with” or “together,” and it shows up everywhere. For instance: connect, converse, context. The uses are straightforward enough. Connect comes from con + nectere, meaning “to bind together.” Converse comes from con + vertere, “to turn with,” the back-and-forth turning of words between … Continue reading Tom’s Fun with Words – CON
The pronouns Who and whom are about grammatical roles, not importance, and their distinction mostly matters in formal writing. Who is used when the person is doing the action in the sentence. Whom is used when the person is receiving the action. A simple way to remember this is that the shooter is who, and … Continue reading Tom’s Fun with Words – Who’s Shooting Whom?
A man who voluntarily assumes responsibility for the welfare and protection of others occupies a quietly heroic role. He stands between order and chaos not for recognition, but because someone must. His actions are not transactional. He does what needs doing because it is right, and in doing so he leaves a visible path for … Continue reading Masculinity and the Complementary Order
This anecdote became the basis for my book, Howlers: Lupus Rex. It happened in January 1983 while I was in Orlando, attending the Navy's Nuclear Power School. This is what really happened, not what I put in the book for cinematic purposes. Having grown up in the piney woods and high swamps of northern Louisiana, … Continue reading All Fact, No Proof: Dirt Road
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