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…
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 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?
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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