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Every now and then a word just catches your ear, and several times in a day it jumps out at you and you’re tempted to say: “There it is again!�Yesterday it was the word “consider�, an ordinary, daily word. Or is it? Why did it strike me so? With my knowledge of Latin, it occurred to me that “consider� has something to do with the stars, for the Latin word sidera means “stars� or “heavenly bodies.� How interesting, I have use the word for the better part of 50 years and that had never crossed my mind. But as sometimes...

A fascinating new atlas, featuring cities that are renamed to reflect their etymological origins, is now on sale. Etymologists and wordsmiths will take particular interest in a new set of maps going on sale in time for Christmas. The traditional names for the world's cities, countries, rivers and mountains have been altered on an atlas to reflect their origins and literal meaning. Chicago, for example, is renamed Stink Onion and Cameroon is called the Land of Shrimps. The logic behind each place name is explained on the back of the maps. Cameroon comes from the Portuguese word camaroes, meaning...

Australians add new words to dictionary By Nick Squires In Sydney  Last Updated: 1:20pm GMT 10/01/2008       They gave the world budgie smugglers, sanger, arvo and barbie*, but Australians have shown themselves to be endlessly inventive, with a new collection of words and phrases added to the rich repository of Strine. The country’s biggest online dictionary, Macquarie, has included the 85 words or phrases in its latest online edition and wants Australians to vote for the one they consider most influential or apposite.   Toad juice anyone? They are grouped in 17 categories, from business to travel, and...

Georgeos Diaz-Montexano, scriptologist and Egyptologist amateur, has been able to identify the names of the Hyksos kings like pertaining to the group of languages and proto-Greek or Mycenaean's dialects. The true ethnic origin of the mysterious Hyksos that were able to take control of the power of a considerable part of Old Egypt, during centuries XVII to the XVI before Christ, has been always a true challenge for the Egyptologists. However, the generalized opinion more for a long time has been that the Hyksos would be Semitic towns, fundamentally coastal inhabitants of the strip Syrian-Palestine, that is, Canaanites or proto-Phoenicians....

ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- Detroit Lions president Matt Millen apologized Monday for using a derogatory term for gays in a heated exchange with Kansas City receiver Johnnie Morton. Millen was talking with Kansas City players and coaches outside their locker room after the Chiefs' 45-17 victory Sunday when he ran into Morton, cut by Millen after the 2001 season. Millen, also the Lions' general manager, said he congratulated Morton but was greeted with an insult from the player. "Unfortunately, I retaliated with a derogatory term directed toward Johnnie," Millen said in a statement. "I apologize if I offended anyone. It...

<p>J.R.R. Tolkien's tale of a brave little fellow called a "hobbit" in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, though patently one of the greatest literary achievements of the 20th century, has been given cavalier treatment by many critics and in many literary circles. Great literature, it seems, must be "serious" and that means it must not be fantasy. It must take place in the "real world," not a world of imagination (though on reflection we must admit that no fiction actually takes place in the "real world" but only in the world as imagined by this or that author). A similar affliction has, in recent years, also applied to films of the science fiction or fantasy genre, which may be allowed (at times) to win awards for "special effects" but are never taken seriously enough to earn "best picture" or "best actor" trophies. A side effect of this is the unfortunate tongue-in-cheek slant delivered to almost all fantasy films, the need to intrude a joking kind of ridiculousness as though the public has to be told "this is not serious stuff and should not be confused with real art." The downgrading of fantasy, in literature or in film, has had its effect not only on Tolkien but on the genre in general, particularly in the past year affecting the marvelous "Harry Potter" stories of J.K. Rowling, which were finally taken off the general best seller list and relegated to "children's stories" lists because they were so popular they were pushing "serious" literature off the list.</p>