The Etymology of Death, Grief, and Mourning

My dear readers, what a difficult month it has been. One of my dogs died unexpectedly, from something called spontaneous pneumothorax, which, in a nutshell, means he had holes in his lungs that formed spontaneously and grew progressively worse over time.

I’m not trying to bring you down; I just wanted you to understand why I chose to write today’s post.

A Taste of Garden Etymology

Today, I’d like to pay a little homage to my vegetable garden. With all the rain and heat we’ve had this year, things are thriving. The tomatoes are attempting a coup and the cucumbers have made a break for the world outside the fence. Needless to say, I’ll be pickling and canning like crazy for the next few weeks.

But before I’m swept up in the harvest, I thought it would be fun to share a little garden etymology with you. So let’s dig right in!

The (Etymological) Origins of the Wicked Stepmother

Some of you may know that, in addition to many other things, I am also a stepmother. A recent conversation with my stepdaughter got me thinking about the origins of stepmother. You see, in French, a stepmother is called a belle-mère, which essentially means beautiful-mother. I wanted to know why the English version was so, um, boring.

It turns out that it’s not boring at all. In fact, it’s quite fascinating. Let me tell you why.

Nervous, Excited and Enthusiastic

As some of you may have heard, the first international editors’ conference, Editing Goes Global, will be taking place in Toronto from June 12-14. Some of you may also know that I will be speaking at the conference. I will be co-presenting a session called “Introduction to Networking: It’s Not as Scary as You Think” with fellow blogger and EAC member, Sue Archer. (If you haven’t already, you should really check out Sue’s blog, Doorway Between Worlds.)

Emerging from the Dark (Matter)

Hello to some of my favourite people on the Internet!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have been up to my eyeballs in work since January. The kind of work that drains all the energy out of your brain so all you want to do at the end of the day is pretend to be a satiated zombie (i.e., sit still, and maybe drool a little). 

A Compliment that Complements

Hello, dear readers! It’s been quite a while, I know. Between work, family, turning 40, more work, pets, alien encounters, and more work, life has been a touch busier than normal, making it quite a challenge to get a coherent blog post written. But I’m here now to talk to you about something that came up in conversation sometime last week.