Beach Reads for Writing

One hot read this summer for English language lovers is
Semantic Antics: How and Why Words Change Meaning, by Sol Steinmetz. In it you'll learn how many of our terms evolved from completely different original meanings. The section on how the word "nude" came to mean "naked" is especially provocative. ("Nude" was formerly a legal term indicating something was unenforceable or void.)

Angry at the rising prices at the pump? I joked that I emptied my bank account into my gas tank. Some blame the Chinese, some blame the government, and some point at OPEC, the oil cartel, a syndicate controlling oil prices. The word "cartel", however, started out meaning a card or paper on which an agreement was written. That's not difficult to hear in the pronunciation. Steinmetz credits the Germans for transforming it into symbolizing a nefarious organization with the signing of a "Kartell" in 1887 supporting the political leader, von Bismarck.

My fave is "silly", the tag I use on the Saturday posts herein. Amazon notes that:

Before the year 1200, the word silly meant "blessed," and was derived from Old English saelig, meaning "happy." This word went through several incarnations before adopting today's meaning: "stupid or foolish."