The name IRAN is rooted in a "linguistic concept," German scholar of Iranian languages Rüdiger Schmitt explained. Peoples from ancient Iran and northern India identified themselves by common language. And English, inter Indo-European alia, is a relative. mashedradish.com/2026/03/01/i...

Do you recognize 𐭠𐭩𐭥𐭠𐭭 or 𐎠𐎼𐎡𐎹? They are ancestors to the name IRAN. I think it's incredible that we know this, and, amidst our present turmoil, I find instruction—maybe even some small consolation—in the reaches of history.

The name IRAN, rooted in an ancient self-designation, has survived the rise and fall of empires past and present. mashedradish.com/2026/03/01/i...

NIN. Mind-blowing live show. On top of insane energy and cinematic production, choice cover of Bowie’s “I’m Afraid of Americans” and encore (“Hurt,” obvs) decaying into Badalamenti’s “Twin Peaks Theme.”

The toponym treatment continues on the blog, this time digging into the place name histories of MILAN, CORTINA, LOMBARDY, ALPS, and DOLOMITES. mashedradish.com/2026/02/15/m...

Infamous? Vivek Ramaswamy. Same class. Also same class: the less assault-y co-founder of GitHub.

Over on threads someone just use ai;dr and we all need to adopt that right quick

This is just unspeakable.

One thing that is surreal is having to use a product of the company that laid my dictionary peeps and me all off.

One of my 8th graders today sped into class at 7:30am to find her best friend & rave about Bad Bunny’s halftime. She’s Latina, 1st language is Spanish, kept saying how “touching” it was, how happy she was for Bad Bunny. Was moved by his litany of Latin American countries & left this at dismissal:

Winter Olympics word of the week: Stoat. (ht @mashedradish.bsky.social) fritinancy.substack.com/p/word-of-th...

I will say, Matthew McConaughey, that “gridiron” is really just a variant of “griddle.”

The English word for HAWK used to be ... HAFOC. Hafoc. Hafoc! That medial consonant certainly flew the nest.

There's other big sports stuff happening today. Like, you know, the Seahakws rematching the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Which prompted me to refresh my 2015 post after the two teams last faced off. Play back the tape on the etymology of HAWK vs. PATRIOT: mashedradish.com/2026/02/08/h...

English used to pronounce the name of MILAN with the stress on the first syllable. This is preserved in the spelling of MILLINER.

FIGURE SKATING originally involved cutting patterns and shapes—FIGURES—onto the actual surface of the ice. Let's have an Olympian carve out ABOLISH ICE in a routine. It would be true to the history of the sport!

Watching the Winter Olympics? I refreshed some posts in my archives on the origins of the broad names of major winter sport disciplines. 👇👇👇

I can't stop thinking about how there is a Cézanne print in George's private, accessible bathroom in 'Seinfeld.'

Apparently the official motto of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics is: IT's your vibe. OK, then. www.olympics.com/ioc/news/mil...

Speaking of Milan, a "milliner," as in a person who makes or sells women's hats, originally referred to someone from Milan. mashedradish.com/2026/02/07/m...

Sandy Hook was a defining moment in US society. We saw the needless, preventable massacre of children—and did nothing about it. The Epstein Files are another. We are witnessing—real time—people in power trying to justify pedophilia. There is no moral ambiguity here. Will we fail again?

I am become slang: “W Mr. Kelly[,] chat.”

What is education for? I look at these 11-, 12-, 13-year-olds. They still want to run and play. They still want to read books and tell stories. Yes, of course, they want to play on computers and phones, but we've already condemned their lives to them. School could be a sanctuary from them.

AI impoverishes learning. It cheats our students. And the insidious and unimaginative integration of technology into every moment of instruction? It prepares students to be 'knowledge workers' for an economy increasingly outsourcing those jobs to AI.

What principals at 'richer' schools ask me in interviews: - How do you use technology? - How will you integrate AI? What principals at 'poorer' schools ask me: - How do motivate learners? - How do you manage diversity of needs? - What other passions do you bring?

Defiance through compassion. Civic gospel. It’s also, you know, the Gospel.

I can't lie when an educator believes in you, it's life changing.

I am become slang: “W Mr. Kelly[,] chat.”

Working in a K-8 school means sometimes you have to pop into a third grade classroom where the kids swarm you, asking if they can give you a hug and say hi to their big siblings you teach in grades 7-8. There is so much good yet in this world.

Late to this. What the hell does it even mean for a groundhog to "see" its shadow, anyways?

A short field report about youth slang in the K-8 school where I teach: - CITY BOY is on the rise as a brain-rot expression - W (short for "win") has currency as a term for "excellent, high quality, cool" - AI is variously used to call out something as fake or too good to be true 1/3

Ah, the internet. I finally learn your given game.

I find symphonies are good for this, too. Just finished Shostakovich's 15th—only to learn David Lynch apparently listened to it regularly while writing 'Blue Velvet.' Let's see how surreal these middle school lesson plans get!

'Icicle' doesn't mean "little ice." It's "ice ickle." And an 'ickle'? That's an old word for 'icicle.' So, 'icicle' is literally, redundantly, delightfully "ice icicle."

I find it both remarkable and, on a deeper, intuitive level, unsurprising that English's core vocabulary for winter weather has been so durable. Largely unchanged from Old English. Instantly recognizable Germanic cousins. Shared, hoary proto-forebears. mashedradish.com/2026/01/31/w...

“The year? 1066. The place? Hastings. The actors? William and Harold.” lol.

January links! Credits: @mashedradish.bsky.social @marthabarnette.bsky.social @paperairplane.pub @stancarey.bsky.social @stronglang.bsky.social @grammargirl.bsky.social & more! fritinancy.substack.com/p/january-li...

A seventh grader raised his hand during a vocab lesson and asked me, “Why do so many words in English come from Latin?” My entire life has led up to this moment.

Ecce fuckin’ Romani! God, that ditch is indelible. ::Cue Sebaldian memory::

I stumbled upon the word 'granu' in an Old English dictionary. It means "mustache." One thing led to another, and now I know that the French name 'Algernon' means "with mustaches." I think you should know this, too. I repeat: the name 'Algernon' literally has a mustache.

Sounds like Bovino was really … cowed out of Minneapolis.

"‘Out!’ he raged, pointing the way.… but the rage is really a mirage – in fact, it’s the same rage as in mirage." sesquiotic.com/2008/12/29/o...

Because I can definitely think of some IMPROPER adjectives to describe how balls- and tits-off-freezing it is. OED entry for the adjective 'cold' (1891, not fully revised):

Minneapolis (and similar besieged population centers) legit holds the future of this country. Direct opposition being organized at 1) community and 2) worker levels at the 3) genuine, and tragically literal, sacrifice of everyday people’s lives, including what I call the “cozy digital bourgeoisie.”

It's *still* January. I've already written about the origins of the names 'Venezuela,' 'Minneapolis,' and now 'Greenland' and 'Denmark.' 'Greenland' begins as a sales pitch. 'Denmark' preserves an old meaning of 'mark' as 'boundary.' Guess what the 'Den-' is. mashedradish.com/2026/01/24/g...

Minneapolis solidarity march in downtown Cincinnati. “Feels like” is 2, hundreds turned out.

As ever, I find myself processing the news through etymology. In my latest, I dive into the origin of 'Minneapolis.' Proposed in 1852 by a schoolmaster, it combines the Dakota 'Mniḣaḣa,' meaning "waterfall," with the Greek 'polis,' "city." mashedradish.com/2026/01/18/m...

‘Considering’ has been used prepositionally in English since the 1400s. ‘Consider’ is French via Latin ‘consīderāre,’ meaning “to inspect, examine, reflect on,” whose further origin is traditionally—and poetically—given as “with the stars.”

As ever, I find myself processing the news through etymology. In my latest, I dive into the origin of 'Minneapolis.' Proposed in 1852 by a schoolmaster, it combines the Dakota 'Mniḣaḣa,' meaning "waterfall," with the Greek 'polis,' "city." mashedradish.com/2026/01/18/m...

A blog about English etymology inevitably includes a lot of Latin, Greek, and Germanic. But some of my favorite posts, like this one, are when I get to dive into less common languages like Dakota. Dakota names so much of Great Plains and Upper Mississippi River Valley—and take it for granted.