Wednesday WOLF - Fundamental

I've got a collection of random information in my brain that makes me an awesome Trivial Pursuit partner, but is completely useless when it comes to real world application. Like say, job applications. I thought I'd share some of this random crap with you in the form of another acronym-ific series. I give you - Word Origins from Left Field - that's right, the WOLF. Er... ignore the fact that the "from" doesn't fit.

Here's a fun one for you today. Ever use the word fundamental? Sure you have. It means means a basic building block, something that you must have.

And it comes from the Latin fundament which means... ass.

Yep. And while we all probably wish our asses were a slightly firmer foundation than they actual are, it still makes for some pretty great wordplay.

For example, "Testing is a fundamental part of the education system."

Ahem.

Wednesday WOLF - Cops

've got a collection of random information in my brain that makes me an awesome Trivial Pursuit partner, but is completely useless when it comes to real world application. Like say, job applications. I thought I'd share some of this random crap with you in the form of another acronym-ific series. I give you - Word Origins from Left Field - that's right, the WOLF. Er... ignore the fact that the "from" doesn't fit.

Here's a little something I learned while writing A MADNESS SO DISCREET. I was working on a scene where a character needed to say something along the lines of, "Somebody call the cops!" Now, aside from the fact that they wren't calling anyone, I couldn't finish the sentence because I didn't know what policemen were called in Boston in the 1890s.

Were they police? Constables? Bobbies?

Ironically, I don't actually remember what the answer was, but I learned something cool while trying to find out.

The reason why we call police "cops" is because their badges were originally made out of copper - hence they were first called "coppers" which became shortened to "cops."

Fifteen minutes worth of research later, I was able to finish my one line of dialogue. 

And I got a blog post out of it :)

Wednesday WOLF - Eat My Hat

I've got a collection of random information in my brain that makes me an awesome Trivial Pursuit partner, but is completely useless when it comes to real world application. Like say, job applications. I thought I'd share some of this random crap with you in the form of another acronym-ific series. I give you - Word Origins from Left Field - that's right, the WOLF. Er... ignore the fact that the "from" doesn't fit.

Here's a fun one - ever hear anyone say that if they were wrong about something they'd eat their hat? I personally love that one and use it often, but I never knew where it came from. The first popular use of the phrase is from 1837 in Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers:

"If I knew as little of life as that, I’d eat my hat and swallow the buckle whole.” 

But where does it come from? I found a reference to a pork stew made of mostly the bits of meat that no one would eat otherwise referred to as hatte stew. I'm not positive on this one, but the fact that hats called pork-pie hats became popular in the 1830's makes me wonder if there is in fact a connection there.

Pork > Yucky Stew > Pork Hats > "I'll eat my hat (the yucky bits) if I'm wrong."