Wednesday WOLF - Steal Your Thunder

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.

You've probably never heard of John Dennis, the playwright. Sadly, it's not words he wrote that he's remembered for, but ones that he (reportedly) said.

For one of his plays - titled Appius and Virginia - Dennis experimented with a new way to imitate the sound of thunder for the stage. The play flopped and was pulled from the stage, but at a presentation of Macbeth, Dennis swore his thunder-making method was being used.

Dennis reportedly said, "That is my thunder, by God; the villains will play my thunder, but not my play."

And yes, that's how we get the phrase "to steal someone's thunder."

Wednesday WOLF - Nitpicker

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.

If you follow my Twitter feed you'll know that I had lice last week. I don't anymore, but I did lose many, many hours of my life to... nitpicking. Which of course led me to this blog post.

If someone is accused of being a nitpicker, it's usually not meant in a kind way. Nitpicking means that you're searching for the smallest problems, the tiniest faults, in another person or object. This might mean that you get yelled at for not pre-rinsing the dishes, but there are positive elements to nitpickers as well. For example, you really want your copyeditor to be a nitpick because it's their job to notice that your main character didn't cross the space between herself and someone else before she slapped them.

Lice lay eggs that are called nits. They're sticky, and they don't come off your hair unless you have a specialized comb, or are willing to slide each one off each hair with your fingernails. Combs don't get everything and I'm a thorough girl, so as I sat in front of the mirror last week, holding each and every strand of my hair into the light, I realized I was, in fact, nitpicking, spending a great deal of time and directing intense, tedious attention to a single task.

So I looked it up. And yes, we get our modern use of the term from these lovely, sticky, itchy parasites.

Wednesday WOLF - The Exception Proves the Rule

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.

It's a phrase most of us hate, and none of us understand:

The exception proves the rule.

No, it doesn't make sense... unless you understand the history of the word proves.

The usage of words can change and language shifts over time. For example, girl used to mean any pre-pubescent person, regardless of their sex. And nice used to mean silly, stupid, or ignorant.

The word proves was more commonly used as meaning; to test the truth or usefulness of something - think proving ground.

So the exception proves the rule means that the exception is testing the rule... not providing proof that it is, in fact, a rule.