Bonus Episode: Stay at Home Edition

In this bonus ‘stay at home’ episode, we explore several words and phrases that appeared for the first time in the first half of the 15th century, including “turnpike,” “to curry favor,” “budget,” “average,” “peculiar,” “hogwash,” and others.

9 thoughts on “Bonus Episode: Stay at Home Edition

  1. Have you covered the letter j in a podcast? Specifically how the name of Jesus starts with the j sound and in Greek it had an I sound.

    • Greg, Kevin has covered the i –> j sound multiple times. Iupiter –> Jupiter, Iulius –> Julius, etc. I think most of the times Kevin mentioned this was in early episodes (the first 50 or so). Have you listened to those?

      Also, about two inches from the box in which I type this is a large thumbnail of Kevin’s The History of the Alphabet. It can be yours for all of $6 or $7. Try it, you’ll like it :).

    • As Spencer noted, I have discussed the development of letter J in several different episodes. I specifically addressed the sound change you mentioned in ‘Episode 18: Keeping Time with the Romans.’ I also touched on the same issue in Episodes 34, 35, 44, and 48. However, I haven’t engaged in a thorough discussion about the letter J because the letter didn’t really emerge as a distinct letter (from letter I) until the Modern English period, and I haven’t gotten to that point yet.

  2. Ah, nearly all of these were thoughts and questions I had during the last couple episodes – thanks for including them as a bonus mini episode!

    Just a note, this one didn’t pop up on my normal iphone podcast feed for some reason (I accessed it from the website).

  3. They eggcorn “coming down the pipe” may also have been influenced by the existing phrase “in the pipeline”.

  4. There’s a popular beer in the UK, brewed by Theakston Brewery, named Old Peculier, in honour of the Peculier of Masham.

  5. People in Massachusetts still refer to a road as a ‘pike,’ specifically ‘The Pike,’ I-90, the Massachusetts Turnpike.

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