by Dwane | Sep 11, 2024 | English, Latin, Vocabulary
In a Latin class today, we talked about the word for bad, malus. From malus, English gets all kinds of bad words. No. Not that kind of bad words. The following English words trace their origins back to malus: Malice – the desire to do evil Malicious – intending to...
by Dwane | Jan 25, 2024 | Education, English, Vocabulary
In a French class this morning, my students and I learned the French word for forget: oublier. We spent a few minutes talking about the word. Oublier, the French verb, comes from the Latin verb meaning the same thing, obliviscor. Forgetful, in Latin, is oblitus....
by Dwane | Jan 24, 2024 | Education, English, Vocabulary
Raining hard in Tennessee today. On days like this my apanthropy usually kicks in. Apanthropy is the desire to be alone, a love of solitude. Apanthropy comes from two Greek words. The preposition ἀπό (apo) means “away from”. Ἄνφροπος (anthropos), which you may...
by Dwane | Jan 23, 2024 | Vocabulary
Someone once said, “English is a German language with a Latin vocabulary.” We can see the truth of that statement in the word fiancée. This word came up this morning in a French class I teach. In French, a fiancée is a woman who has promised to marry. ...
by Dwane | Dec 19, 2023 | Education, English, Vocabulary
Calendar: a system for measuring the days and months of the year. Calendar comes from the only word in Latin that uses the letter K, Kalendae. The Kalendae, to the Romas, was the first day of the month. It was also the day debts were due and accounts were reckoned....
by Dwane | Dec 18, 2023 | Education, English, Vocabulary
December: the twelfth and final month of the year December comes from the same root word that gives us the English decade (a period of ten years), decennial (occurring every ten years), decimal (to the tenth place), and dime (ten cents). December means: the tenth...
