What do you call the covering on the end of a shoelace?
An aglet.
The metal hoop that supports a lampshade? A harp.
The indentation at the bottom of a wine bottle? A kick or a punt.
An aglet.
The metal hoop that supports a lampshade? A harp.
The indentation at the bottom of a wine bottle? A kick or a punt.
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 metal measurer that measures foot size is called the Brannock device.
English is the wordiest language, with approximately 455,000 active words and 700,000 dead words.
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 term probably dates back to fifteenth-century England, where strict laws were passed to prohibit bakers from underweighing their bread. Since weights could not be precise, bakers adopted the practice of giving 13 loaves on every order of 12. However, another theory has to do with the common folk phrase devil’s dozen, meaning 13. Bakers…
Probably not. In French, gaga means a silly old man, and the meaning may simply have been modified. However, some think it is short for artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), who, it is said, revealed mental imbalance in his work.