In the dim past, when I was in high school, I had a trio of books
- Why do they call it ... ?
- Why did they name it ... ?
- What's in a name?
(I don't recall now if the titles really included the ellipsis, but I think they did. I'm also uncertain as to that third title.)
These books answered questions like
- Who/What are the Masons?
- If Christians mark time as periods before and after the birth of Christ, why is the time after his birth Anno Domini (AD, Latin for after) but the time before his birth Before Christ (BC, English for before - from a time when England/English did not exist)?
- Why are reporters and journalists said to be members of the Fourth Estate? What is an Estate What is the Fourth Estate? What are the other three (3) Estates? Are there more than four (4) Estates?
- Why do they call it tin?
- What's the difference between dynamite and nitro glycerin?
- What are rare metals and why are they rare?
I'm looking for Websites and services that do that. Not certain how to class them. They'd be part lexicon, part philology, part lexicology, part ... ?
Thought I remembered a thread here about that, but cannot locate one (1).
I'd like to create a reference list of URLs, and I've run across a number of them over the years, but there's not not enough consistency in the naming or descriptions for a definitive search.
But I figured an erudite -
and quirky! :-* :P - bunch like this would probably have a number of such URLs already bookmarked. Gimme 'em
.