The Smiths

The Smiths are often described as the most important band of the 1980s that never truly "went mainstream" in the traditional sense. It was a brief, five-year flash of fame from 1982 to 1987. 

The band was formed when guitarist Johnny Marr knocked on the door of Morrissey, a shy, bookish writer in Manchester. Along with bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce, they created a sound that systematically dismantled the synth-heavy, glitzy "New Romantic" pop of the era.

The band got its name from lead singer Morrissey. He chose "The Smiths" because it was a very ordinary, common name, a deliberate contrast to the more flamboyant and elaborate band names popular in the 1980s. He wanted the name to represent "ordinary folk."

In just five years, they released four studio albums—The Smiths, Meat Is Murder, The Queen Is Dead, and Strangeways, Here We Come—plus several legendary compilations. They stayed on an independent label (Rough Trade), maintained complete control over their iconic "indie-film" cover art, and famously refused to use synthesizers, relying instead on Marr's "jangle-pop" guitar layers.

The Smiths were the first "indie" band to prove you could be uncompromising, literate, and deeply depressed, and still be popular.

Like many great partnerships, the tension between the "moping" poet (Morrissey) and the musical architect (Marr) became unsustainable. They split in 1987 at the height of their powers, famously never reuniting since.

Part of their appeal is in the way the music sounds like a sunny afternoon, but the lyrics feel like a rainy midnight. Morrissey gave a voice to the shy, the alienated, and the "clumsy and shy." He made it fashionable to be bookish and miserable, often using sharp, dark humor to poke fun at his own despair.

Johnny Marr provided the genius. His style was intricate and melodic, often sounding like multiple guitarists playing at once. You could dance to songs or just listen to the lyrics about loneliness.

In an era of big hair and aggressive masculinity, they celebrated a "genderless" or soft-focus version of rock that paved the way for Britpop and modern Indie.

Picking "bests" is a loser's game, but you can always list favorites. Here are 5. Feel free to comment on your own favorites.

"There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" (1986) Widely considered the band’s masterpiece, this track from The Queen Is Dead perfectly balances Johnny Marr’s lush, cinematic arrangement with Morrissey’s lyrics about romantic devotion. It’s the ultimate "morbidly romantic" anthem.

"How Soon Is Now?" (1984)  Originally a B-side, this song became the band's most recognizable hit globally. It features an iconic, pulsing tremolo guitar effect that was unlike anything else in the 80s. Lyrically, it’s the definitive anthem for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider at a club: "You go and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own..."

"This Charming Man" (1983)  The song that truly introduced the world to the "Smiths sound." It’s upbeat, jangly, and remarkably catchy, featuring one of Johnny Marr’s most celebrated guitar riffs. It captured the band's unique blend of sexual ambiguity and kitchen-sink realism.

"Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" (1984). At under two minutes, this is one of the shortest songs in their catalog, but also one of the most poignant. It’s a simple, mandolin-heavy plea for a break in life that has resonated in countless movie soundtracks (most notably Ferris Bueller's Day Off and 500 Days of Summer).

"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" (1984). This song title became a shorthand for the band's entire persona. It’s a witty, ironic take on the drudgery of daily life and the feeling of being unhappy even when things are technically "fine."

Why Are TV Pilots Called Pilots?

"Pilot” is a word most often associated with a person who flies a plane. It can be used as a verb meaning “to act as a guide to” or “to set the course of,” which makes sense with the airplane pilot theme.

 "Pilot" originally comes from the Greek pedon, meaning “steering oar.” It has been used in English as a verb in the sense of guiding direction as far back as the 1510s. Around 1907, it became a noun meaning “one who flies an airplane.” 

The phrase “pilot studies” is common in the field of research to determine the feasibility of a scientific theory. 

Less clearly, it can also be used to describe the first episode of a TV series.

The OED's earliest example dates to a 1953 edition of Sponsor magazine (aimed at TV advertisers). “As an indication of new show costs, the pilot for ABC’s new Danny Thomas situation-comedy film came to a higher tab than I Love Lucy.” 

Why are these TV episodes called "pilots"? It is another etymological mystery. I couldn't find agreement on an origin. They do seem to be designed “to set the course of” the series. They are a kind of “test flight” for the show's concept. They are similar to a “pilot study."

The TV industry has a "Pilot Season," which is the annual time for testing new show ideas. It traditionally was from January to April, but streaming services have disrupted this rhythm, producing pilots year-round. A pilot episode is a standalone sample for a potential series. networks use them to decide which ones get picked up for full seasons. Some of these pilots never get picked up, and that one episode is all there is of the concept, and they are never seen by the public. 

Writers pitch ideas in summer, networks order scripts in fall, pilots are filmed in winter and executives review and choose which shows to greenlight by spring. These pilot episodes are often quite different from the rest of the series, as the writers are figuring out the concept. 

Why are these TV episodes called "pilots"? It is another etymological mystery. I couldn't find agreement on an origin. They do seem to be designed “to set the course of” the series. They are a kind of “test flight” for the show's concept. They are similar to a “pilot study."

Watch the pilot for Seinfeld (a series I love), which was when the series was going to be called "The Seinfeld Chronicles," and you'll see many differences.

For example, the pilot features a waitress named Claire instead of Elaine Benes. Elaine was added later to balance the cast with a stronger female presence. Kramer’s name was originally “Kessler” due to legal concerns about using the real name of Larry David’s neighbor. The quirky traits that define Kramer were also less pronounced. George is more of a neurotic Woody Allen type in the pilot, rather than the Larry David-inspired character he becomes later. Instead of Monk’s Café, the gang hangs out at a generic luncheonette. The pilot leans heavily on Jerry’s stand-up routines to frame the story. It lacks the interwoven plotlines and ironic twists that later became signature to the show’s storytelling. The dialogue is slower, the humor more subdued, and the overall vibe more conventional than the sharp, self-aware rhythm that defined later episodes.

In the Nick of Time

Sometimes I come across an origin story that makes me shake my head and wonder, "Is this for real?" That was how I felt when reading about the phrase “In the Nick of Time” which has come to mean an action performed just before it is too late. 

It seems to have originated in the 18th century. People kept track of the money they owed to creditors with a stick - a tally The stick was carved with the number of days you had until the loan was due. If you paid before the last nick, then you didn’t owe interest on the debt. You made it in the nick of time.

Loanwords and Other Borrowings

I have posted a series of articles here recently about the words that have entered English from French, a process that began with the French-Norman conquest of England in 1066. Some people might refer to those words as "loanwords." But are they loanwords? 

A loanword is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. 

"Loan" or "borrow" may seem like odd descriptive words considering that nothing is taken away from the donor language and there is no expectation of returning anything, as in our typical usage of those words.

I had to research the term, and it gets more complicated. Loanwords may be contrasted with calques, in which a word is borrowed into the recipient language by being directly translated from the donor language rather than being adopted in (an approximation of) its original form. 

Some calques in English:
A word, skyscraper, from French gratte-ciel, literally to “scrape-sky.
A phrase, "moment of truth" from Spanish, "el momento de la verdad," meaning a critical turning point.
Superman comes from the German Übermensch, a Nietzschean concept, that later becomes the comic hero.
Brainwashing originates with the Chinese xǐnǎo (洗脑), literally translated as “wash brain.” 
Adam’s apple is a Latin borrowing of pomum Adami, a Biblical reference to the forbidden fruit.

The word "loanword" is itself a calque from German lehnwort, meaning a word borrowed from another language.

We also distinguish loanwords from cognates, which are words in two or more related languages that are similar because they share an etymological origin in the ancestral language, rather than because one borrowed the word from the other.

Here are a few -
          English  | Cognate Language  |  Cognate Word and Meaning

• Animal Spanish/French animal A living creature
• Hospital French/Spanish hôpital / hospital Medical facility
• Family French/Spanish famille / familia Group of related people
• Minute French/Spanish minute / minuto Unit of time
• Telephone French/Spanish téléphone / teléfono Communication device

Examples of loanwords in the English language:
 café (from French café, which means "coffee"), bazaar (from Persian bāzār, which means "market"), and kindergarten (from German Kindergarten, which literally means "children's garden"). 

Here's an oddity - the word calque is a loanword, while the word loanword is a calque
Calque comes from the French noun calque ("tracing; imitation; close copy"). Loanword and the phrase loan translation are translated from German nouns Lehnwort and Lehnübersetzung (German: [ˈleːnʔybɐˌzɛt͡sʊŋ]

Loans of multi-word phrases, such as the English use of the French term déjà vu, are known as adoptions, adaptations, or lexical borrowings.

Although colloquial and informal register loanwords are typically spread by word-of-mouth, technical or academic loanwords tend to be first used in written language, often for scholarly, scientific, or literary purposes.

Pen Names

Pseudonyms are "false" names or names that are not the true (given) names of an individual. They are one of a larger group of -onyms and -nyms (like synonyms and antonyms) in English - many more than we were taught in school.

Pseudonyms, when used by an author, are called pen names.

Some Famous Pen Names

Richard Bachman is Stephen King, 20th century American horror author

Acton Bell, Currer Bell, and Ellis Bell were the names used by Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, and Emily Brontë

Mary Westmacott is Agatha Christie, 20th century British mystery writer

Anthony Burgess is John Burgess Wilson, 20th century British writer, author of A Clockwork Orange.

Lewis Carroll is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 19th century British author, mathematician, known best for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Sue Denim is used by Dav Pilkey, a writer and illustrator of the popular "Captain Underpants" children's book series and is also used by science fiction writer Lewis Shiner. Sue Denim is a parody of the word pseudonym itself.

Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), 20th century Danish author of Out of Africa

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), 20th-century American poet, novelist and memoirist

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), 19th-century English novelist

C. S. Forester (Cecil Smith), 20th-century writer of the Captain Horatio Hornblower novels and The African Queen

O. Henry (William Sidney Porter), American author of short stories and novels

Hergé (Georges Remi), 20th-century Belgian comics writer and artist, famous worldwide for creating the Tintin series of books

Ann Landers (Esther Pauline Friedman), and Abigail Van Buren/Dear Abby (Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips), advice columnists

Stan Lee (Stanley Martin Lieber), comic book pioneer & Spiderman creator

Molière (Jean Baptiste Poquelin), 17th-century French theater writer, director and actor, and writer of comic satire.

George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), 20th-century British author of Animal Farm and 1984

Ellery Queen     Frederic Dannay, and Manfred B. Lee shared this pen name for their 20th century detective fiction

Saki (Hector Hugh Munro), 20th-century British short story writer and satirist

George Sand (Armandine Lucie Aurore Dupin), 19th-century French novelist and early feminist

Dr. Seuss (Theodore Seuss Geisel), also used "Theo. LeSieg", 20th-century American writer and cartoonist best known for his books

Lemony Snicket is the listed author of A Series of Unfortunate Events but is really the pen name of Daniel Handler

Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), 19th-century French writer

Mark Twain    Samuel Langhorn Clemens (also used "Sieur Louis de Conte" for his fictional biography of Joan of Arc) 19th-century American humorist, writer and lecturer

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), 18th-century French Enlightenment writer, deist and philosopher.

Going Down a Rabbit Hole

To "go down a rabbit hole" means to get so deeply absorbed in a topic, task, or search that you lose track of time and often end up somewhere completely different from where you started.

It’s that "How did I get here?" moment. You looked up "rabbit hole," it referenced Lewis Carroll which led you to something about math, and down the hole you went.

The phrase originated from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In the story, Alice follows a White Rabbit down a hole, which transports her into a surreal, illogical, and seemingly endless world.

While the book gave us the imagery, the modern "internet" usage really took off in the late 1990s and early 2000s along with the Internet, social media and smartphones.

The modern rabbit hole starts with a minor question or interest. One piece of information found leads to another, then another (often via hyperlinks or "recommended" videos). When you emerge from this time loop, you realize that many minutes or hours have passed. maybe you acquired some new and oddly specific knowledge. maybe you just wasted time on useless information.

Pseudonyms: Rappers

I have written before about pseudonyms. The use of these "stage names" is a very common practice amongst music rappers.

Here are some of the better-known ones.

The origins are sometimes obvious, sometimes not obvious. For example, Eminem began rapping at age 14 with his friend Mike Ruby using the pseudonyms "Manix" for Ruby and "M&M" for Marshall Mathers III initials. "M&M" evolved into "Eminem."

A less obvious origin is that of "50 Cent," adopted by Curtis James Jackson III. Jackson adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for change. The name was used earlier by Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn thief known as "50 Cent." Jackson said he chose it "because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means."

Andre 3000 ............... Andre Benjamin
Busta Rhymes ............... Trevor Smith
Cee-Lo .................. Thomas Calloway
Common .............. Lonnie Rashid Lynn
DMX ...................... Earl Simmons
Foxy Brown ............... Inga Marchand
The Game .................. Jayceon Taylor
Ghostface Killah ............. Dennis Coles
Grandmaster Flash .......... Joseph Saddler
Ice Cube .................. O’Shea Jackson
Ice-T ....................... Tracy Morrow
Ja Rule ...................... Jeffrey Atkins
Jay-Z ...................... Shawn Carter
KRS-One .....................Kris Parker
Lil’ Kim ....................Kimberly Jones
LL Cool J ............... James Todd Smith
Ludacris ................. Christopher Bridges
Mos Def .................... Dante Smith
Notorious BIG ......... Christopher Wallace
Snoop Dogg ...............Calvin Broadus
T.I............................Clifford Harris Jr.

MacGuffin

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo in North by Northwest

Alfred Hitchcock used a narrative device in some of his films that he called a "MacGuffin." It is the thing that the characters care about, and that kicks off the plot, but the audience should not be concerned with it because it is ultimately irrelevant to the plot. 

He explained the term using a surreal anecdote about two men on a train, which he repeated in interviews for decades. Hitch claimed the term was a Scottish name, and he would tell the following joke to illustrate its inherent "emptiness."

Man A: "What’s that package up there in the baggage rack?"
Man B: "Oh, that’s a MacGuffin."
Man A: "What’s a MacGuffin?"
Man B: "Well, it’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands."
Man A: "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands!"
Man B: "Well, then that’s no MacGuffin!" 

His point was that a MacGuffin is a purely mechanical element used to "trigger" the plot. 

Hitchcock’s personal favorite MacGuffin was the "government secrets" in North by Northwest. He called it his best because it was the emptiest. The hero asks what the villain is selling. The agent replies: "Oh, just government secrets." By refusing to even name the secrets, he proved that the object only exists to give the characters a reason to chase each other.

An additional origin note is that while Hitchcock popularized the term, he credited its creation to his friend and screenwriter Angus MacPhail. They likely chose the name because it sounded like a common Scottish surname, adding to the "nonsense" nature of the joke. Some film historians also point out that the word "guff" is British slang for "nonsense" or "empty talk," which fits the definition perfectly. 

Sometimes the MacGuffin is considered to be the same as a "red herring", but while both are plot devices used to manipulate the audience’s attention, they serve completely different structural purposes.

The MacGuffin is the motivation. It is the thing the characters are chasing. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as the characters want it badly enough to drive the story.

A non-Hitchcock example is the statue in The Maltese Falcon. Everyone is killing each other to find it, but it could have been any object that was considered valuable by the characters.

A red herring, as I have written earlier) is a clue, character, or plot point that is intentionally misleading. It’s designed to make you reach a false conclusion so that the eventual "twist" is more shocking.

In the Harry Potter book and movie series (especially in The Prisoner of Azkaban), we are led to believe that Sirius Black is a villain trying to kill Harry. Throughout much of the series, Snape is also seen as working to harm Harry, when in fact he is protecting him.

Red Herrings

 

The term "red herring" has an origin story that is, appropriately enough, a bit of a "red herring" itself. I was told long ago in some literature class that it came from the practice of using fish to distract hunting dogs. Turns out that is not true.

First, there is no such biological species as a "red herring." A red herring is a standard herring that has been heavily salted and smoked for a long period. This process turns the fish's flesh a reddish-brown color and gives it an incredibly strong, pungent odor. Before refrigeration, this was a common way to preserve fish so they would last for months.

The popular and false origin is that in the 17th century, escaped prisoners would drag a smelly red herring across a trail to confuse hunting hounds and lead them away from their scent.

However, modern etymologists have found no historical evidence that this was ever done by escapee or hunters trying to distract dogs. Actually, red herrings were sometimes used to train dogs or horses to stay on a scent or to get them used to distractions, not to trick them during a real hunt.

So, what is the true origin? The figurative meaning we use today in writing is that a red herring is something that intentionally misleads or distracts. It was popularized by an English journalist named William Cobbett in 1807. Cobbett wrote an article in his periodical, Political Register, where he told a story (perhaps true) about how he had used a red herring as a boy to lead a pack of hounds away from a hare. He used this story to attack the English press for prematurely reporting that Napoleon had been defeated. He accused the newspapers of using a "political red-herring" to distract the public from important domestic issues.

I've heard the term used in that way in 2025 and 2026 to explain how the Trump administration tries to distract the press and public from important issues by creating distractions.

Because Cobbett’s writing was so widely read, the metaphor stuck. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it became a standard term in literature and mystery writing to describe a clue designed to lead the reader down the wrong path.

A 2025 Version of Slop

Lots of people and organizations - especially dictionary publishers - do their Words of the Year lists. 

I saw that the Word of the Year 2025 from Merriam-Webster is "SLOP."

Not a new word, so I figured it must have a new meaning or usage. Their editors define slop as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence. "

A little word we all know to sum up the videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books, “workslop” reports that waste coworkers’ time… and lots of talking cats. 

People slop annoying, and they keep on clicking on it and watching and reading.

“AI Slop is Everywhere,” warned The Wall Street Journal, while admitting to enjoying some of those cats. 

“AI Slop Has Turned Social Media Into an Antisocial Wasteland,” reported CNET.

Slop is like slime, sludge, and muck. It has a wet sound and seems like something you don't want to get your hands on. But we do tend to grab at some of this ooze.

The original sense of the word, in the 1700s, was “soft mud.” 

In the 1800s, it came to mean “food waste” (as in “pig slop”), and then more generally, “rubbish” or “a product of little or no value.”

A few other possible hot words or terms of 2025. You can look them up if you're curious.

• Gerrymander 
• Touch Grass
• Performative
• Tariff
• Six Seven 
• Conclave

Sunlight‑Based Terms for Times of Day

The transition from day to night (and vice versa) is divided into several phases based on the Sun's position relative to the horizon. While we often use words like "dusk" and "twilight" interchangeably in casual conversation, they have precise astronomical and poetic meanings.

Night - The Sun is more than 18° below the horizon; no scattered sunlight reaches the lower atmosphere.

Astronomical Twilight - The Sun is 18° to 12° below the horizon.

• Astronomical dawn — the moment the Sun reaches 18° below the horizon in the morning.

• Astronomical twilight (morning) — faint light appears, but most people still perceive full darkness.

• Astronomical twilight (evening) — faint light persists after sunset.

• Astronomical dusk — the moment the Sun sinks past 18° below the horizon in the evening.

Nautical Twilight - The Sun is 12° to 6° below the horizon.

• Nautical dawn — Sun reaches 12° below the horizon; horizon becomes visible.

• Nautical twilight (morning) — sailors historically used this light to see both stars and the horizon.

• Nautical twilight (evening) — horizon still visible but dim.

• Nautical dusk — Sun reaches 12° below the horizon; horizon visibility fades.

Civil Twilight - The Sun is 6° below the horizon up to the horizon.

• Civil dawn — Sun is 6° below the horizon; enough light for many outdoor activities.

• Civil twilight (morning) — brightening sky before sunrise.

• Civil twilight (evening) — lingering light after sunset.

• Civil dusk — Sun reaches 6° below the horizon; artificial light usually becomes necessary.

Sunrise & Sunset - The Sun crosses the horizon.

• Sunrise — the upper limb of the Sun appears.

• Sunset — the upper limb of the Sun disappears.

Daylight - The Sun is above the horizon.

• Early morning — shortly after sunrise.

• Morning — increasing sunlight.

• Midday / Noon — Sun at its highest point.

• Afternoon — declining but strong sunlight.

• Late afternoon — warm, angled light.

• Golden hour — warm, low-angle sunlight shortly after sunrise or before sunset.

• Blue hour — cool-toned light just before sunrise or after sunset, overlapping civil twilight.

Dawn & Dusk are umbrella terms.

• Dawn — the entire transition from night to sunrise (all twilight phases).

• Dusk — the entire transition from sunset to night (all twilight phases).

Deep Night occurs after astronomical dusk and before astronomical dawn.

• Night — full darkness.

• Midnight — the midpoint of the night (civil time, not astronomical).

Upper and Lower Case

Upper and lower cases

I love this very literal word origin story. The terms uppercase and lowercase that we associate with the letters of the alphabet evolved directly from the physical storage system used by typesetters in the era of the movable-type printing press.

We go back to the days of Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The movable type system in early printing meant that every single letter, numeral, and punctuation mark was cast as an individual block of metal, called a sort.

To compose a page of text, a typesetter (or compositor) had to pick out each sort one by one and arrange them backward in a frame.

To keep the hundreds of different sorts organized and easily accessible, printers stored them in compartmentalized wooden trays called type cases. Traditionally, the typesetter would use a pair of cases, which were set up on a working stand, often angled and stacked. The upper case, which was set above and behind the lower one, held the capital letters. Capital letters (which were also known as majuscule letters) are used far less frequently in English text, so they could be stored slightly further away.

The lower case, positioned below and closer to the typesetter, held the small letters (also known as minuscule letters) that make up the vast majority of any given text.

The arrangement of the letter compartments within the lower case was based on letter frequency. The largest compartments, and those closest to the typesetter, were for the most common letters, like 'e', 't', 'a', and 'o', saving the typesetter time and effort.

The terms became standardized and filtered out from the printing trade into general language around the 18th century, thankfully replacing the older, more technical terms of majuscule and minuscule.

Noon and Midnight

“Noon” and “midnight” are just two of our designations of times of the day. Both mark the point when an analog clock starts another 12-hour cycle. But the word “noon” took a little bit of a journey around the clock before arriving at its current location.

The root of the word “noon” is the Latin nonus, meaning “ninth,” which became nōn in Old English and Middle English. The word marked the ninth hour after sunrise. This made “noon” a bit of a moving target, but a 6 a.m. sunrise, for instance, would put noon around 3 p.m.

It may have been fasting monks that caused noon to shift earlier in the day. The ninth hour is significant in Christian liturgy as time set aside for prayer, known as nones, and it was particularly important in early monastic traditions. Because monks were often required to fast until then, one prevailing theory as to why the ninth-hour prayer started drifting earlier is that people were getting hungry. The Roman Catholic canonical hour of nones remained at 3 p.m., but by the 14th century, “noon” referred to a new time of day, when the sun was highest in the sky.

Knock on wood

The phrase "knock on wood" is a ubiquitous expression used to ward off bad luck. While the phrase “knock on wood”—or “touch wood” in Britain—has been part of the vernacular since at the least the 19th century, there seems to be little agreement on how it originated.

One origin theory is that knocking on wood has its roots in ancient pagan beliefs, particularly among Celtic cultures. According to this theory, trees were considered sacred, housing spirits or minor gods. Knocking on a tree trunk was believed to rouse these spirits, seeking protection or thanking them for good fortune. This idea is supported by the fact that ancient cultures did revere trees, often associating them with powerful spirits and divine connections.

However, there's a catch: there's no direct evidence linking ancient tree worship to the modern practice of knocking on wood. The gap between the Christianization of Europe and the first written records of this superstition spans over a thousand years, making it challenging to confirm this theory.

Other possible origins include:

A medieval European belief that evil spirits or demons lurked in wood - even wood used to build a house or table - and knocking on wood would chase them away

A superstition that wood has protective powers, possibly due to its association with the cross

A simple gesture of humility, acknowledging that one's fate is not entirely in one's control

Why Do People Knock on Wood for Luck? | HISTORY.com

El Niño and La Niña

El Niño and La Niña are terms used to describe complex weather patterns in the Pacific Ocean, specifically referring to fluctuations in ocean temperatures and their impact on global climate. These events occur every 2-7 years, impacting global climate patterns and often leading to extreme weather events.

El Niño refers to the warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, near the equator, which can lead to:
Droughts in Australia and Asia
Heavy rainfall and flooding in South America
Warmer winters in North America

La Niña refers to the cooling of the eastern Pacific Ocean, which can lead to te opposite effects:
Increased rainfall in Australia and Asia
Droughts in South America
Colder winters in North America

But why are the names “El Niño” and “La Niña” used for weather patterns?

Peruvian fishermen first noticed the effects of what would be called El Niño at Christmas time, when storms off the coast reduced the supply of fish. “El Niño” is Spanish for “the boy child,” and is used to refer to the Baby Jesus, and is so associated with the Christmas season.

"La Niña" was later coined to describe the opposite phenomenon, the cooling of these waters. The names reflect the region's strong Catholic heritage and the traditional naming of significant events after male and female figures. These terms were adopted globally to simplify communication about these complex climate patterns.

Misnomers

Recently, I wrote about how the turkey bird is mistakenly named for the country Turkey. It's an example of a misnomer. A misnomer is a name that is incorrect, unsuitable, or misleading for the thing it refers to.

Misnomers generally occur for one of three reasons:
Scientific Reclassification: We learned more about the item (e.g., biology) after it was already named.
Historical Changes: The object changed, but the name stayed the same (e.g., "tin" foil is now aluminum).
Foreign Origin Errors: The name was based on a misunderstanding of where the item came from. Such is the case for the turkey bird.

Other common examples

• Peanuts are not nuts; they are legumes (related to beans and peas).
• Lead pencils are a misnomer because pencils have never contained lead.  The core is a mixture of graphite and clay. But when graphite was discovered, it was mistaken for a form of lead.
• Koala bears are not bears; they are marsupials (pouched mammals).
• Neither jellyfish nor starfish is a fish. Biologists prefer "sea jellies" and "sea stars" because fish are vertebrates with gills, while these are invertebrates.
• Your "funny bone" isn't even a bone. It is the ulnar nerve running against the humerus bone. Humerus and humorous mix to describe that "funny" sensation when the nerve is being pinched.
• Fireflies are beetles, not flies.

A cute koala - but not a bear