iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"in a pickle" to mean "in trouble" started around the 1560s according to etymonline.com. "pickle" originally refered to a sauce and eventually came to be associated with a cucumbers because they are preserved in a brine liquid

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

French negation used to be simple. Just add "ne", i.e. "Je ne marche". Then people made it more punchy by adding "pas" (step) to make "Je ne marche pas" (lit: I don't walk a step). Eventually this construction became so popular they started using it everywhere and sometimes use only "pas"

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Woops! Have you ever accidentally changed the language option and then wondered what was happening?

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

To be or not to be in the Original Pronunciation from the 1600s

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Wow! 100 issues 😀I started my magazine in June 2018 and now it just reached issue 100 We have a special bumper issue for you. Three language content creators have contributed to this issue: Nativlang, Yoïn van Spijk of "Taal aan de wandel" and Starkey Comics Read more here sillyli.ng/D1fGIj

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

"onomatopoeia" comes from Ancient Greek ὀνοματοποιία from ὄνομα (name) and ποιέω (make or produce). So it means "to make a name" and is used to refer to the make a word that sounds like what it is describing like splutter or gurgle

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

From u/ADZealousideal9914 on r/learndutch on Reddit

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Where do the names of the week come from? How did English change to sound like it does today? Explore Chinese literature, and learn more about Gaelic in issue #99 of Silly Linguistics available on our website for only $3 / month or you can get an annual subscription sillyli.ng/t9seWt

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

бeлок (belok) can either be the genitive plural of бeлка (belka) which means squirrel or it can mean protein. I guess someone was translating from a dictionary and didn't check if it made sense

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

It warms me sea lubbing heart to see that word supports pirates. Arrr

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Is this meme too niche? Who cares :D

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Oh, we also have a Discord. We chat about languages, words, etymology and language learning. If that's your thing, then come on by! sillyli.ng/tLK7KM

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Join the Silly Linguistics Discord Server!

We chat about words, etymologies and grammar of languages around the world | 3161 members

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

All languages have dialects. There is tremendous diversity of in the way people speak all over the world. Sometimes people use "dialect" to mean a subset or regional variety. But these dialects are different enough to be stand alone languages

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I was learning Swedish and a pun came up on social media and it looked like "If you flink the flank, you dink the dank". Now, I am sure this was very funny from all the laugh reacts, but it felt very frustrating because I didn't get it 😂 How do you feel about puns in languages you are learning?

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

English is Germanic and French is Romance. But English borrowed a ton of words from Romance (mostly French and Latin) and French borrowed a lot of Germanic (because it was founded by the Franks a Germanic tribe). Sometimes English has a Romance word but French has a Germanic word

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Did you know there are links between the cute sausage dog and the word "technology"?

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

/r/ is a phonetic description of the R sound we find in languages like Spanish. It represents a trilled or rolled R French used to have this sound but in the course of the 1800s it transitioned to the R sound it has today (/ʁ/ in IPA). Sometimes things are much more recent than we realise

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

In linguistics, a "phoneme" is the smallest element of a word that makes a difference in meaning. "b" is the /b/ phoneme. But "sh" is a single sound in English and represents the /ʃ/ phoneme. Different languages have different sounds. Some languages have a lot of phonemes and some have far fewer

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

The next issue of the Silly Linguistics Magazine is out. Get it on Patreon sillyli.ng/YCL0Pb We explore the terminology of sailing, explore how English changed in the medieval era, and why you can't read in dreams

Leefange to Rombowline - On the naming of rope at sea

The history of the English language - Part 3

Language of your dreams or why can't we write while sleeping

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

With the Odyssey movie now out, I thought I would explore some words that come from Greek names (like how odyssey comes from Odysseus)

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I refuse too! A message everyone can get behind!

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

While it's funny, in some ways it is also disappointing and frankly embarrassing. I used to be a programmer (actually have a programming degree) before I got into languages I love technology. I wouldn't be able to do what I do without it. But is this the best you can do?

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

As the Scientific Revolution proceeded, people were in need of technical terms to describe their discoveries. We mostly got them from Latin or Ancient Greek. Words like species and genus come from Latin and psyche, geology and paleontology from Ancient Greek

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Hi everyone. I run a magazine that talks about languages and linguistics. I want to do a big FAQ all about languages and linguistics. Do you have any questions you would just love to ask a linguist? The answers will be appearing in the issue 100 (which is a few months away)

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Everyone likes a good language fact? Right?

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Thank you Google Assistant, very helpful I don't think computers are quite capable of taking over just yet 🤣

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Almost all the Germanic languages use the word "ja" for "yes". The English word "yes" comes from Old English "gese" (where the "g" was pronounced like Modern English "y") where it meant "yes, it is". "se" in Old English is related to German "sind". So English was weird back then already

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

The word "draw" and "drag" are related. Do you have any questions about English (or other languages)? Feel free to drop them in the comments

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Why not learn another language? Only have to add it to the 40 other ones I have tried 😁 What languages are you learning at the moment?

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Interestingly, a lot of languages borrowed their word for "boat" from English. I wonder why that is. Is it because the English were always travelling around by boat? 🤔

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

English is spoken in South Africa (being a form British colony) but it has gathered some quirks over time

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Stayin' Alive translated into the English of the 1300s

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Issue #96 of the Silly Linguistics magazine is now available. We have articles from writers from all over the world. You can read the cover article about idioms in Mongolian, my article about the history of the English language or many other topics sillyli.ng/Jm8KXw

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

"debt" comes from French but ultimately from Latin debitum, and "doubt" too comes from French but also ultimately from Latin "dubitare". At some point English speakers who were fans of Latin wanted to put the "b" in to show its heritage but it was never pronounced in English

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

The English language took Germanic words and just changed all the meanings

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

What is your opinion on Duolingo and other language learning apps? Do you use them? Which ones have you used? Have you found them helpful?

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Steve the vagabond @stevevagabond.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

I don't even use autocorrect. I would rather write "conprehend" than "cunpehrhend" or whatever nonsense autocorrect puts out

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