Fault implies failure. When did "default" become positive?

Question raised at the Font/Interface conference now happening at Stanford, on the subject of fonts for non-Latin-script languages.

Bring to an end, which can be either a simple statement of fact (use a period to terminate a sentence) or something much more emotional (he was terminated (from his job) today). Or, with an extra syllable, carried to an extreme: exterminate. There are related adjectives in the family: determinate, i...

Similarly in Greek -- stress on a different syllable gives a change in meaning: τραπέζα -- table (inflected form) τράπεζα -- bank Never mind tonal languages like Mandarin. It's quite possible to tell a comprehensible story (provided you're fluent in Mandarin) using only one syllable with different t...

Oh, my darling Clementine!

A drawing, usually more simple than elaborate. Often a preliminary drawing, to guide the creation of a more elaborate final product such as a fresco or tapestry. Sometimes the drawing is, itself, the final product, as a political cartoon, brought to high (intellectual, not necessarily artistic) poli...

What, if anything, does the "cellar" in "saltcellar" have to do with the "cellar" as basement or wine (or root, or storm) cellar? In the latter sense, "cellar" also functions as a verb, denoting the activity of storing something, perhaps for aging, in that und...

Gertrude? Only if Ermintrude (or Ermentrude) also counts. There's also Waltrude. Apparently a rather common ending for ladies' names during the early Middle Ages.

Slava, you missed "obtrude", which is what I'm doing -- interfering.

We've been told viewtopic.php?t=12235&start=15#p60815 that "proof" is not a Good Word. So let us here proffer a mild reproof that "reproof" isn't offered here as a legitimate nominal offspring of the designated verb.

As I understand it, in breadmaking, "proofing" is the action of determining whether the yeast is still viable (interesting rearrangement of the letters in "alive" plus "b"), not the rising of the dough. If the yeast isn't viable, the dough won't rise, so even mixing it ...

I've never seen resurrection ferns on a banyan, but they sure do love live oaks, My favorite place to watch them is on Little St Simons Island, Georgia. Also the home for lots of Spanish moss and the delightful green fly orchid.

There are also proof coins, specially minted with a high polish, valued by collectors. I have no idea what, if any, particular verb form(s) may apply.

Time for a diagnosis by the Good Doctor,

It might also be said that a pilgrimage is a kind of peregrination.

By itself, in a non-mathematical sense, this indicates a part of something. It also forms a part of other words: refraction, diffraction, infraction. Somewhat related etymologically, fractal describes a shape that is formed of innumerable self-similar parts. In the 1950s, diffraction gratings -- sur...

Near the north end of the Garden State Parkway (New Jersey) there is, or at least used to be, an area that I refer to as the "operating engineers' playground", presumably where less experienced members of that profession could practice their skills. The most distinct feature was a large, p...