What is a papal bull?
It is not an animal, but an official edict or decree from a pope.
The term comes from the Latin bulla (a knob or seal).
It originally referred to the seal that was placed on the pope’s official documents.
It is not an animal, but an official edict or decree from a pope.
The term comes from the Latin bulla (a knob or seal).
It originally referred to the seal that was placed on the pope’s official documents.
English is the wordiest language, with approximately 455,000 active words and 700,000 dead words.
The phrase Swan Song refers to ancient legend. It was thought that the swan, silent throughout its life, sang aloud in its final minutes.
It derives from the Latin nescius, or “ignorant,” which comes from nescire, or “not to know.” In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the phrase a nice person connoted foolishness rather than agreeableness. Over the years, however, nice has gained its more favorable, if bland, connotation.
It depends on whom you ask. Some editors will still change “to boldly go where no man has gone before” to “to go boldly . . .” But other pundits now consider the taboo against split infinitives all but passé. The taboo was introduced by eighteenth and nineteenth-century grammarians for unknown reasons.
The phrase upside down was believed to be an early form of upsedown or up so down. The phrase came into popularity during the Elizabethan Age.
Rather than measuring the time that passes during a meeting, the word minutes refers to the Latin minutus, or “small.” This is because the occurrences of the meeting are meant to be noted shortly and quickly, not that the events themselves are unimportant.