I'm sure oths have been dazzled by the good prof's collection of names in his illustrations, like today's Rusty Horne and the frequent Maud Lynn Dresser. I wonder whether he would care to comment on how he derives his list and how long he has been developing it. I'm quite sure it's still a work in p...

Consider "populist" as a good word. Here in Louisiana, the Longs were branded as populists, probably so they would not be called "liberals," which is a cussword down here. However, I noticed in Time last week that Rand Paul was being called a populist. That's a 180 degree switch....

Certainly there's an adverbial use if you're into Tom Swifties: "Able was I ere I saw Elba," he commented palindromically. .

Which leads me once again to wonder where "hot dog" came from, in both the food and athletic senses.

Yr posting software is anti-art. The1 2 "l"'s were originally under the front and last -'s for legs

I tend to pronounce the a in frigate, pillage, and alert the same way. I've spent most of my life in N Louisiana and we don't always match midwest and broadcast English. But to my ear, broadcast English also audibly pronounces the a, but moves on, like a schwa. Why Luke's obsession with sheep pics? ...

I note the word "straight" used here, which stirred up my wondering about the source of all the "ght" words in English: e.g. night, bright, fright, etc. I suspect simplified spelling will overtake this weird formulation as texting, etc. leads people to simplify. I myself in infor...

I believe the term "avatar" is now being used by Facebook and Twitter users to refer to the small picture that appears beside each post. Most are true pictures, but creativity abounds with all sorts of tokens, drawings, and creative symbols. Many change the avatars frequently. Others, such...

Immaculate might be a good word during this season. It's obviously of Latin derivation, but is it related to macular degeneration? And many confuse the Immaculate Conception with the Virgin Birth.

Have you discussed "avatar" yet?

Somehow I always thought "tetchy" was a hillbilly form of "touchy." Seems like they use the word in TV and movie scripts that way.

I've lived in Louisiana for my first four yrs and the last 38. In between I've lived in CA, TX, KY. I've never heard "reprobate" used so seriously as in today's column. More often it's jocular as in "that old reprobate" and yr example of young reprobates. I don't remember ever he...

In today's good word, the good dr commented that French was a derivation of Latin. I wonder what made that language so different from Spanish, Portugese, and Italian. French is much more complicated and has this weird habit of losing the last syllable or two in pronunciation. Spanish is pretty strai...

Scholars (well, archaeologists) discovered in the last century that the New Testament is written in colloquial Greek. Prior to the discovery of a cache of ancient manuscripts, the prevailing view was that particular Greek was a "holy" language as some now revere the KJV. But the new materi...

I've also heard a few people use "kitty" instead of "cata" or "cater" in these words. Probably originally intended as a humorous variant from "cat" to "kitty." I'm in Louisiana, so I don't know how widespread this is.