A reader asked me, “How does a word like rare become idiomatically used to mean eager, as in ‘raring to go’?” Answer: It didn’t. The rare in “raring to go” has nothing to do with the adjective that means, “seldom found.” The rare in raring is an altered pronunciation of the verb to rear: “to…
Month: June 2016
10 Things I Didn’t Know About Tarzan
When I heard that a new Tarzan movie was about to be released, I started thinking about the Tarzan of my childhood: Johnny Weissmuller. I remember Weissmuller as a great swimmer—he usually had at least one scene in which he killed some creature in the water—and as a great screamer. His signature call was blood-curdling…
Jeopardy Does It Again
The Jeopardy errors continue to accumulate. Here’s a clue from the June 8, 2016 Double Jeopardy category “The Book Book”: $800 The “day” medieval English folk thought the world would end; it comes before “Book” in the name of a tome that counted them. Alex accepted the response “What is the Doomsday Book?” but the…