There’s an English word for “sleep during daytime”: nap. But is there a word for “a period of nighttime wakefulness,” aside from spelling nap backwards as pan? The French have a lovely word for this state, dorveille, a portmanteau of dormir, “sleep” and veiller, “wake.” After coming across references in journals and other historical documents to first sleep followed by a period of wakefulness, followed by second sleep, historian Roger Ekirch made a cross-cultural study of the phenomenon, which formed the basis of his fascinating book, At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past (Bookshop|Amazon). Other terms involving phases of sleep include the rare English word semisomnous, or “half-asleep,” and hypnopompic, describing “the process of waking.” In Japanese, uto-uto denotes “the process of falling into a light sleep.” This is part of a complete episode.
Humpty-Bump Pull Top, Diamond Loop, Reverse Shark’s Tooth, Hammerhead, and Goldfish from the Top are all names of aerobatic maneuvers recorded in the Aresti System, designed by Spanish aviator Jose Luis de Aresti Aguirre as a means of...
If you reeeeeeeeeally want to emphasize something in writing, you can engage in what linguists call expressive lengthening, or making a word longer by repeating letters. It’s an example of paralinguistic restitution — rendering in text...
Subscribe to the fantastic A Way with Words newsletter! Martha and Grant send occasional messages with language headlines, event announcements, linguistic tidbits, and episode reminders. It’s a great way to stay in touch with what’s happening with the show.
