In American composition classes, brackets are reserved for editorial intervention; if you interrupt yourself with an interpolation, parentheses ( ) are preferred. Dashes and commas may also signal authorial asides, of course, but they are practically...

A coward is someone who displays craven fear or lack of courage in the face of crisis or danger. The adjective pusillanimous is often applied. That comes from two Latin words, and may be translated as “puny of spirit.” But back to the word coward....

A listener asked where the word Halloween came from. Originally, the word was All-hallows Eve, the evening before All Saints Day, November 1. A hallow was a holy person, a saint; the word first appears in 885. As with so many other celebrations, the...

In earlier centuries, there seems to have been a fixation on stuttering. I deduce this from the number of words that contain that concept. A number of these words have primary or secondary meanings involving stumbling or unsteady walking. Halting...

The root -trud- came from the Latin trudere, to thrust, and it showed up in many words, usually verb forms. • abstrude: to thrust away • contrude: to thrust or crowd together • detrude: to thrust away, expel, or repel forcibly • extrude: ...