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Everything filed under words.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The slow, patient circling of a thumbnail around a roll of clear sticky tape, hunting for an end that is certainly there and absolutely refuses to be found.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Shampoo, the Spanish champú and the Russian shampun all go back to a Hindi word meaning to press, and in English it first meant a massage, not a wash.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The small show of glancing at your phone, frowning and nodding before you turn round on the pavement, so that nobody thinks you were simply walking the wrong way.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Ketchup, the Spanish kétchup and the Russian ketchup all go back to a word from the coast of southern China that meant the juice of pickled fish, with no tomato anywhere in it.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The grave, expert-looking knock given to a watermelon in a shop, followed by a slow wise nod, by somebody who has no idea what a good one is supposed to sound like.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Kiosk, the Spanish quiosco and the Russian kiosk all come from a Persian word for a palace or garden pavilion, which shrank on its way west into a booth on the pavement.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The painfully slow opening of a noisy sweet wrapper in a hushed room, done in the firm belief that slow means silent, which it never does.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Hammock, the Spanish hamaca and the Russian gamak all swing from one word of the Taino people of the Caribbean, which reached Europe in the 1490s and was later mistaken for a hanging mat.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The single bare foot sent out from under the duvet on a warm night to patrol the cool air at the edge of the bed, while the rest of you stays safely tucked in.
Fact-based Word Journeys
A popular story says kangaroo means I don't understand, but the word was a real name for a big grey kangaroo, written down beside a river in 1770.