I covered the etymology of awkward in my newsletter recently. "Awk" meant off. Something "awkward" was in the wrong direction. From that you get the idea of something being ill-fitting, or "not fitting in". Someone being stubborn is not going in the direction you want them to.

As a half-Brit I love these kinds of videos! I have lived on both sides of the pond on and off for my whole life and still find myself muddling up some of this stuff. Also fun to see a shout out to @evanedinger.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvWU...

HAPPY WEDNESDAY LET’S GO TO THE FUCKIN MOON

Anyone know what kind of larva this is? I found it in a pile of rotted logs that had been there for a few years. It’s longer than my thumb!

1/5 Oh, I quite like this one! I could literally talk for hours about this topic. I am in a unique situation because I had accent-reduction speech therapy for several years. My teacher would say “Think about what you are trying to say before you say it” @jesszafarris.com @robwords.bsky.social

American English vs. British English | From @robwords.bsky.social and @jesszafarris.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvWU...

Low-key expecting the new HP series to have the protagonists and their pals overthrow Umbridge on the grounds of her hatred of "half-breeds," but then post their own Educational Decree that says "all half-breeds are equal, but some half-breeds are more equal than others"

“Gimme a break!” — the truck driver, probably fortune.com/2026/03/28/k...

My desire to expand my horizons by reading new books is waging war with my impulse to find comfort in rereading old favorites.

This might be a controversial take, but I think Futurama is to sci-fi what Discworld is to fantasy. Many will say it's Hitchhiker's Guide, and I agree Futurama wouldn't exist without it, but Futurama takes HHGTTG's logic and humorous spirit several steps farther with more profound conclusions.

Go momma🙏💙👏👏tell them you gotta vote even if you have to hold your nose democracy matters

That’s my mom! She spent yesterday getting 255 high school seniors in Memphis TN public schools registered to vote, and now she’s at No Kings getting more people set to make their voices heard.

Just pre-ordered @jesszafarris.com's Into the Words: An Etymologist's Field Guide to Plants, Animals, and Nature Looking forward to reading this! a.co/d/06PF3hy4

Today I saw a V-22 Osprey flying over my house, and almost every night we’ve started hearing and seeing similarly sized (or at least similarly loud) military aircraft. I’m an hour from West Point, so that’s not totally unusual, but definitely far more frequent in the past few weeks.

I’m sure Fable is a marvel of science because she appears to emit constant and steady pulses of dopamine for others to absorb

Case in point: My publisher recently laid off the only publicist assigned to my work. I'm planning to work with her as a freelancer (which puts it out of my pocket rather than the publisher's because they know authors *will* pay for that to get their books sold). newrepublic.com/article/2076...

A few English words wholly or partly from Persian and Iranian sources: caravan, bazaar, paradise, taffeta, lacquer, jackal, absinthe, jasmine, manticore, lime, scimitar, pistachio, caviar, arsenic, chess, check(mate) Probably: tiger, Amazon, rose, tapestry

Excited to show you what Otherwords host Erica Brozovsky and I cooked up with PBS Digital Studios Producers/Directors Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews while I was in Austin! Videos coming soon.

While outside with my dogs, I thought of something I wanted to say on the podcast, so I fired up voice-to-text and began chatting about collocated phrases and chuckling to myself until I turned around and made eye contact with my baffled neighbor who had been standing on his patio a few yards away

it's a great injustice of modern manufacturing that the most delicious gummies are the medicinal ones you're not allowed to eat more than a few of if my melatonin gummies were sold alongside an unmedicated version of the same product, i'd vanish a jar of them before you could say "family size"

Forest fairy Fable!

🤬 John McWhorter talks taboos and slurs on the Words Unravelled podcast with Jess Zafarris and Rob Words @jesszafarris.com @robwords.bsky.social 📰 Here’s what happened this week in language and linguistics! Website: linguisticdiscovery.com/posts/2026-11/ Substack: open.substack.com/pub/linguist...

I had someone email me about the etymology of malign, benign, malignant, and indignant. It sent me on a ride through malign and benign as different parts of speech, plus malignant but the infrequent "benignant." And then indignant as an orphaned negative/unpaired word without "dignant." (1/?)

1. Did you know that Girl Scouts has, for a long time, accepted trans girls and nonbinary scouts? Trans kids are under attack. Every year, I make a thread of trans and nonbinary girl scouts you can get your cookies from. Lets get our cookies from them this year in solidarity!

@jesszafarris.com that thing where you're only allowed to copy a certain percentage of copyrighted books ought to be known as "avoid overexerption"

I’ve read two novels in a row in which a character is “sent sprawling unceremoniously” or “flung unceremoniously,” and now I’m curious as to what a ceremonious sprawling or flinging would look like.

Look at these good listeners

Our smoker is open for the season today, so for St. Pat's we've got: a 10-hour smoked corned beef brisket roasted cabbage, potatoes, and carrots beer cheese dip with pretzel bites, celery, and cucumber and guinness obviously

Wow! Another one for the apocalypse bingo card ✍️

major shoutout to the ASL interpreter who had to deal with this slide in my SXSW talk

Pi(e) day pi(e) facts: The guy introduced the Greek letter for pi was the father of the guy who discovered proto-Indo-European (PIE)

It’s been removed now, but a bot created a bootleg Facebook account and uploaded a bunch of my video content. What an honor, really. I, Zafarris Jass, love seeing my videos and my timeless authonial works "Upon a Ward" and “Wards from Hell" earning their due fame.

Wolfgang Amadeus Meowzart turned 13 this past week!

Today, @jesszafarris.com helps us look at the surprising origins of words: * Why "miniature" originally referred to a red color and not a size. * Why a "factoid" wasn't originally a fact. * How "hello" only became a common greeting because of the telephone. LISTEN: pod.link/173429229

Actual interaction with a guy on a rickshaw bike in Austin: Him: you want a free ride? Me: no thanks Him: completely free Me: I like walking Him: I could drop you off farther away

An adjective to describe the evil, otherworldly entity you summon to memorize the tying up of loose ends after the climax of the story: denoumonic (a triple pun and also the edible just kicked in)

This is my lunch entertainment, Motherfucker!!!! #wordnerd #WordsUnraveled @robwords.bsky.social @jesszafarris.com

The world isn’t exactly hunky dory right now, but there’s this new #wordsunravelled podcast with @jesszafarris.com and @robwords.bsky.social joined by the man himself John McWhorter…so there’s hope! youtu.be/6JYqGa_-UZE?...

Well this was very fun.

66. #yt www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jPj... At 0:47:41, @jesszafarris.com says that shopping in other countries feels like stepping into a different reality -- and that is my EXACT feeling!!! When I went to the UK and all the GM cars had a Vauxhall logo... (cont)

This time tomorrow, I’ll be getting ready to hit the stage at @sxswedu.com 🎉

just snapped and posted this on LinkedIn, I couldn’t take it anymore

I never thought about this before, from @jesszafarris.com s awesome book Useless Etymology.

I’m rereading Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men, and as usual, it feels like he wrote it just for me. “Another and larger part of Tiffany's brain was thinking of the word susurrus.” “She'd read the dictionary all the way through. No one told her you weren't supposed to.”

Next week in Austin: 3 public talks 3 book signings 1 mentor session 4 video recordings At the same time, a 55-speaker conference that I produced will be happening without me in Orlando Before I go: Speak on a virtual panel NPR interview podcast recording 3 writing deadlines 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

A few years ago, my mom dug up some historically significant patents, property details, etc. from her grandparents' rural Arkansas property. She asked the local archive if they were interested; they were, but only because our family is white. They'd been instructed not to accept records from POC.

This red onion has a wee heart at its heart

me: i feel mentally stable enough to read a sad book right now narrator: reader, she was not

@jesszafarris.com - I hope you will be pleased to know that WORDS FROM HELL occupies the role of honor as "Emergency Back Up Book" in the car, in case I ever forget to bring whatever book I'm reading & am stuck in a waiting room or wherever with nothing to read. "In case of emergency, crack spine!"