In the acclaimed podcast S-town, journalist Brian Reed notes that sundials often bear haunting inscriptions about the brevity of life and the passage of time. Some 1,682 of them are collected in The Book of Sun-Dials, originally published in 1872 by children’s book writer Margaret Scott Gatty and expanded in a later edition by Horatia K.F. (Gatty) Eden and Eleanor Lloyd. Among those included in this handsome volume are the Latin inscription Fugit hora, ora, which translates as “The hour flies, pray,” and Omnia velut umbra, “All is as a shadow.” This is part of a complete episode.
Inkhorn terms are bloated, fancy, show-off words formed by cramming Latin and Greek roots into English. The name references little bottles made from animal horn that 14th-century English scribes used to carry their ink. Lexicographer Henry...
Kylie Ryan, an elementary-school teacher in Seattle, Washington, remembers that when she played hide-and-seek as a child, the call for everyone to come in was alle alle oxen free. Are there other versions? Yes, and because these sayings were not...
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