The Lingoberry Blog
Language-learning tips, culture, and stories from Pip
Where do the weekday names come from?
Say the English weekdays and you're invoking Norse gods; say the Spanish or French ones and you're invoking Roman ones. They're the same seven days, named twice — with a planetary puzzle, a saint who deleted the pagans, and one day nobody could translate.
From ZIP codes to blog posts: the surprising history of the word "post"
ZIP code, postal code — same argument, different accent. But neither side ever stops to ask the stranger question: why is the thing that carries your letters and publishes your blog posts called post in the first place? The answer involves Roman relay horses, a wooden stake in the ground, and two Latin roots that split apart two thousand years ago and quietly braided back together into one of the most ordinary words on your keyboard.
September is lying to you — and so are October, November, and December
September means "seventh." October means "eighth." November, ninth. December, tenth. Every single one of them is wrong — and has been for over 2,500 years. Here's the paper trail of kings, dictators, and one very decisive pope that turned a tidy ten-month calendar into the gloriously broken thing we still use today.
