What is Spelunking?
Spelunking is the exploration of caves as a hobby.
It is not to be confused with speleology, the scientific study and exploration of caves.
Spelunking is the exploration of caves as a hobby.
It is not to be confused with speleology, the scientific study and exploration of caves.
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.
The phrase “to look a gift horse in the mouth” is as old as the fourth century A.D. and once had a literal meaning. Up to a certain number of years, a horse’s age can be determined by examining its teeth. To perform such an examination on a horse you’ve been given is looking a…
Sweatshops were referred to as such not because the workers sweat a lot. In the 1840s in England, the word sweating meant the exaction of tedious work at low wages. The term sweatshop, a place where workers were “sweated”, was coined in the United States in 1867. Originally referring only to the garment industry, it…
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.
The phrase, which has come to refer to a completely inebriated person, derives from sailing, but not from the sails, as one might think. In the early 1800s, chains were used to regulate the angle of the sails, and these were called sheets. When the sheets were loose, the boat would become unstable and “tipsy,”…
English is the wordiest language, with approximately 455,000 active words and 700,000 dead words.