The use of Ain’t as a substitute for am not or are not dates back to the reign of King Charles II, about 300 years.
It is unclear how or why it became unacceptable in the English Language.
It was coined by New York’s Finest along Twenty-third Street in the years before World War I. At the corner of Twenty-third Street and Broadway, traditionally the windiest corner of the city, men used to stand outside the famous Flatiron Building for free looks at ladies’ well-turned ankles. The police dutifully moved the audience along,…
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.
Angry, hungry, and gry, which is a now obsolete unit of measure that is equal to 0.008 inch.
The Latin phrase et al., short for et alia (“and other things”) and et alii (“and other people”), is more specific than et cetera (“and the rest”). Only et al. can refer to people.
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,”…
The word is used by astronomers to describe the position of three bodies that are approximately in line. For example, when the moon is full, it is in syzygy with the earth and sun, because it is on the far side of the earth from the sun.