The term “spelling bee” is an interesting name that has nothing to do with the insect. No vendors are selling honeycomb, there’s no mandatory black and yellow dress code, and the only buzzing is probably coming from an incandescent light hanging overhead. So how did spelling bees get their name? Using “bee” to describe communal gatherings intended to accomplish a specific goal entered the collective lexicon in the 18th century.
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“Bee” was used in this specific context by 1769, referring to an “informal social gathering … organized to carry out a specific activity.” The reason for the term “bee” is unclear, though there are theories. According to Scripps National Spelling Bee — the preeminent U.S. spelling competition — the term is derived from the Middle English “bene,” which translates to “a prayer or favor.” As the English language evolved, “bene” became “been,” used in reference to any help that was given toward accomplishing a task. It’s believed “been”was shortened to “bee,” which is where the modern term comes from. However, this is just a linguistic theory that’s difficult to confirm one way or the other. The word “bee” as an insect has been in use since at least 13th-century Old English writings.
The first published mention of a communal bee came in the Boston Gazette. It referenced a group of women meeting for a “Spinning Match; (or what is call’d in the Country a Bee)” to produce cottons and linens. Soon people were gathering for quilting bees, drinking bees, sewing bees, and more. In 1850, the term “spelling bee” appeared in print in The Knickerbocker magazine. It made mention of spelling bees occurring at schools in the country, implying these events were already considered common at the time.
In 2025, the Scripps National Spelling Bee will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Schools can apply for entry through January 31, 2025, so there’s still time to get onstage at the most prestigious spelling bee in the world.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
While many use “dinner” and “supper” interchangeably today, these terms once distinguished between midday and evening meals, and classified the importance of the meal.
The terms “supper” and “dinner” both mean one thing: that it’s a bad day to be a tasty cheeseburger or a delicious plate of pasta. These words are often used interchangeably to refer to a large meal at night, but throughout history, they haven’t been entirely synonymous. To better understand how to use them correctly, let’s travel back to the 18th century, when the three most common meals eaten each day were called “breakfast,” “dinner,” and “supper.”
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“Supper” is defined by Oxford English Dictionary (OED)as “the last meal of the day,” while Merriam-Webster classifies it as “the evening meal especially when dinner is taken at midday.” The definition of “dinner,” meanwhile, has undergone a slight evolution over time. As early as the 14th century, dinner was defined as “the first large meal of the day,” but through the 18th century, it evolved to be considered “the main meal of the day, taken either around midday or in the evening.” Based on the definitions, you can see that the concepts of supper and dinner are intertwined, but not exactly interchangeable.
Now for some historical context — according to food historian Helen Zoe Veit, 18th- and 19th-century people often “[ate] dinner — the biggest meal of the day — around noon.” This was due to many people working from home (on a family farm, for example, not in a home office like you might), making it easier to prepare and eat a large midday meal. At night, these folks were usually still satisfied from their big midday dinner, but they would have a light supper before bed.
As industrialization expanded and people left their homes to work in factories and office spaces, it became difficult to prepare a large midday meal worthy of being called “dinner.” Consequently, dinner shifted to the evening when people got home from work. Supper became less common as there was no need for a light meal before bed. That said, you can technically swap “supper” for “dinner” if you’re talking about the last meal of the day. Using “supper” for the evening meal is most common in farming communities where the largest meal is still eaten at midday.
The most common term for the midday meal now is “lunch,” which is a shortening of “luncheon.” It came about in the early 16th century, referring to a light repast (an old-fashioned term for “snack”) served between the meals of breakfast and midday dinner. If we were in Great Britain, we could devote many additional lines to the differences between high tea, afternoon tea, and royal tea, but we’ll save that for a future edition. Bon appétit!
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
A zeugma is a literary technique that creates multiple meanings in a single context. Thanks to zeugmas, we can humorously express the idea of losing both our wallets and our patience.
I have a theory that music listeners fall into one of two camps: The first values catchy melodies and harmonies, while the second is drawn to the poetry of lyrics. I’m firmly in the latter camp. Recently, while immersed in the lyrics of Taylor Swift’s most recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, I found a line that scratched my wordplay-loving itch. In the song “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” she sings, “You crashed my party and your rental car.”
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This line exemplifies a zeugma (pronounced “ZOOG-muh”), a rhetorical device that modifies two different nouns using one word (usually a verb or an adjective). Here, “crashed” applies to both “party” and “rental car,” linking the emotional turmoil of an uninvited guest with the literal disaster of crashing a rental car. The zeugma emphasizes the chaos caused by this individual, creating a vivid image that wouldn’t be as powerful if it were expressed in two separate lines.
The use of zeugmas is nothing new. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen wielded this tool during an interaction between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy: “Yet time and her aunt moved slowly — and her patience and her ideas were nearly worn out before the tête-à-tête was over.” In this instance, Austen illustrates that while Elizabeth’s aunt physically moves slowly, time also drags on figuratively, heightening the awkwardness of her conversation with Mr. Darcy.
A few decades later, Mark Twain employed the device in one of his most memorable lines from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: “They covered themselves with dust and glory.” Here, “covered” is used literally with “dust” and figuratively with “glory,” making the phrase more engaging because of this union.
“Zeugma” itself is pulled directly from the Greekzeugma, meaning “that which is used for joining.” If you incorporate this tool in your writing, use it judiciously. A well-placed zeugma can add flair, emphasis, or humor, but it demands more from readers. Overuse can lead to confusion or fatigue, so use it sparingly — just as Swift, Austen, and Twain have masterfully demonstrated.
Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering through a museum, exploring a new city, or advocating the importance of the Oxford comma.
I admit that QR codes were once a puzzling concept — an intriguing but seemingly unnecessary tool. That changed in 2020 when technology became a lifeline for everyone amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The social-distancing practices enacted during that time meant learning new ways to navigate daily life, and QR codes became an indispensable tool for businesses and institutions. The square-shaped, black-and-white codes are scanned using a smartphone or tablet camera, providing instant access to restaurant menus, appointment check-ins, product details, and more. Their versatility and convenience have made the codes essential to our “new normal,” persisting long after many social-distancing practices have faded. But what does “QR” stand for, and where did these codes come from?
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The answer to the first question is simple — “QR” is an initialism for “quick response” — but the answer to the second is a little more involved. The QR code story begins in the 1990s, when Japanese car engineer Masahiro Hara faced a significant limitation: traditional barcodes stored only 20 characters of data, and printing multiple barcodes on packaging was increasingly inefficient. Determined to create a more effective barcode, Hara set out to innovate.
Hara drew inspiration from the board game Go, which features black and white playing pieces on a square grid. His invention, a more sophisticated version of the traditional barcode, was markedly different from antiquated horizontal barcodes, because his design stored information both horizontally and vertically in a square grid, holding up to 2,953 bytes of data or 7,089 numeric characters. In comparison, UPCs (Universal Product Codes), commonly found on products in North America, are limited to just 12 numeric characters.
Hara’s invention, dubbed “quick response codes,” debuted in 1994 but struggled to gain consumer popularity. This perception shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly, QR codes were an efficient way to order food, complete forms, and pay bills from your own device, without exchanging physical contact. When asked about his invention’s impact during the pandemic, Hara remarked, “I’m really pleased that it’s been used to help improve people’s safety. Back in 1994 we were focused on its use in the economy… we never thought it would be used for something like this.”
It seems that QR codes are here to stay, but something new could be on the horizon. In 2023, Hara announced he was working on a new version of the QR code that could store more information through the inclusion of color. As a QR code convert, I’m looking forward to it.
Featured image credit: Kunlathida6242/ Shutterstock
Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering through a museum, exploring a new city, or advocating the importance of the Oxford comma.
There are a few easy ways to determine someone’s age. You can ask them how old they are, look at their driver’s license, or, to make it more fun, toss out an educated guess based on the slang terms they use. Many slang words and phrases are pretty indicative of a certain time period. That’s because new terms are coined each generation, while older slang eventually falls out of fashion. Generational divides can be spotted by the popular slang terms that came about during each time period.
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Silent Generation
The Silent Generation encompasses people born between 1928 and 1945, when slang wasn’t as popular as it is today. Watching movies or reading books written during these years will reveal language that seems formal to modern ears. That said, by the 1950s, members of the Silent Generation had coined a few slang terms that were embraced by the youth. “Daddy-o” referred to someone cool, and a person was “cruising for a bruising” if they were looking for trouble. It was the following generation, however, that introduced several slang words that are still used today.
Baby Boomers
Baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) embraced slang on a wider scale, coining sayings such as “boob tube” (“television”), “threads” (“clothing”), and “ticked off” (“annoyed”), to name just a few. Boomers also came up with “dig it” for when you’re really into something, or saying you have to “split” when it’s time to leave. Other slang words from this time include “groovy” (“cool”), “square” (“uncool”), and “moo juice,” to describe a fresh glass of milk.
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Generation X
Generation X includes anyone born from 1965 through 1980. Gen Xers are known for living a somewhat grungier lifestyle than their predecessors, as evidenced by the music that became popular in the late 1980s and early ’90s. This generation popularized terms such as “gnarly” and “phat.” “This rocks” describes something that’s amazing, and slang terms including “dude” and “homeslice” became positive terms of address. A Gen Xer would also tell someone to take a “chill pill” to calm down, invite someone back to watch TV at their “crib,” or call something “bogus” if it’s false.
Millennials, the more popular term for Gen Y, are people born from 1981 to 1996. The rise of this generation coincided with the rise of the internet, so many slang terms are the initialisms that developed out of internet culture: “BRB” (“be right back”), “OMG” (“oh my god”), “TBH” (“to be honest”), among others. Millennials are also responsible for coining words such as “bae” (to talk about their significant other) and “slay” (to praise someone doing something exceptionally well). You may also hear a millennial use “adulting” when behaving responsibly, “keeping it 100” when being real and truthful, or “getting swole” when lifting weights at the gym. This generation may also feel serious “FOMO,” which means a “fear of missing out.”
Generation Z
Gen Zers, also known as “zoomers,” came into the world between 1997 and 2012. For many older adults today, Gen Z slang is enough to make your head spin. But terms such as “cheugy” (“outdated”) and “sus” (“questionable” or “dishonest”) are part of a coded language that these young people share. Another popular series of terms coined by this generation are “cap” (“false”), “no cap” (“true”), and “capping” (“lying”).
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Generation Alpha
Generation Alpha generally includes anyone born since 2010. If you’re a member of the Silent Generation — or even a millennial — then some of the most popular Gen Alpha slang may sound like an alien language. Take, for example, the slang term “skibidi,” which can refer to something that’s either cool or bad, or even be used as complete gibberish. Its origin is a meme called the “Skibidi Toilet,” and there’s an associated viral dance trend. If this still doesn’t make sense to you, you’re not in Gen Alpha. It’s enough to know that “skibidi” is often used as an exclamation in bizarre situations. For something that does make more sense, try “rizz,” an abbreviation of “charisma,” used to describe someone with the trait. Gen Alpha also uses the Greek letters “sigma” and “beta” to describe something that’s good or weak, respectively.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
Is It Ever OK To End a Sentence With a Preposition?
Barring prepositions from the end of sentences is a grammar school fallacy many have fallen victim to. Discover why words like “with,” “of,” “for,” and “to” are worthy of a finale.
S tar Wars fans might recall Obi-Wan’s Jedi mind trick in A New Hope when he tells stormtroopers, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” Were Star Wars writers wrong about the placement of the preposition “for”? Should Obi-Wan instead have said, “These aren’t the droids for which you’re looking”? The latter sounds unnatural (and much more Yoda-esque, to be honest). Situations like these have caused grammar reformers to question or outright rebel against this “rule” about not ending sentences with prepositions.
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Prepositions explain one noun’s relation to another, often indicating where or when. They can tell you if a cat is above, below, beside, or under the bed, and they also indicate if the cat hid there before, during, or after dinner. Some argue against ending a sentence with a preposition because it indicates a relationship between two words. They reason that a sentence might seem unfinished if a second noun isn’t included after the preposition. However, ending a sentence with a preposition isn’t the grave grammar mistake that some make it out to be.
Consider this sentence: “The vase was onthe table until the cat knocked it off.” Ending with the preposition “off” sounds natural. By the same token, “That’s what I’m talking about” sounds better than “That’s about which I’m talking,” and the structure of “I have no eggs to bake with” is more common than “I have no eggs with which to bake.” As you can see, context and structure matter.
However, just because it isn’t wrong doesn’t mean it’s always right. Sometimes, that ending preposition is redundant. Asking a friend, “Where are you at?” or “Where are you going to?” falls into this trap with unnecessary prepositions. “Where are you?” and “Where are you going?” are complete questions. To avoid this mistake, try removing the end preposition and see if the sentence still makes sense.
To give some context, the argument for the rule dates back to the 17th century. Grammarians tried to instill Latin preposition placement rules into English, resulting in some believing these were hard-and-fast English rules. In modern English, preposition placement comes down to writing style — there’s no need to adhere to an arbitrary centuries-old rule. Today, most grammar guides and syntax experts agree that ending a sentence with a preposition is OK if it sounds natural and doesn’t break any true grammar rules.
Featured image credit: Sergey Neanderthalec/ Shutterstock
Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering through a museum, exploring a new city, or advocating the importance of the Oxford comma.
When you say something “costs an arm and a leg,” you’re implying that the item is prohibitively expensive. But why do we reference those body parts instead of, say, “an ear and an eye” or “a toe and a tongue”? The idiom’s origins are somewhat murky, and one of the earliest uses comes without much context. In 1576, an English translation of a Philippe de Mornay work about life and death made mention of how long and tedious actions may come “at the cost of an arme or a leg.” The topic of the work implies the initial definition was more literal, and it had less to do with finances.
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Another, albeit possibly apocryphal, theory dates back to 1680, when England’s Charles II asked Sir Thomas Armstrong and Colonel George Legge to manufacture regal coinage for use in the Irish colony. This aspect of the story is historical fact, but it’s an unconfirmed rumor that people would colloquially say that an item with a purchase price of a halfpenny “cost an Arm and a Legge,” referring to the surnames of the two men who produced the coins. This is in no way verified, though it’s one of the more widely professed origin stories behind the idiom.
Eric Partridge, the author of a dictionary of American and British phrases from as far back as the 16th century, suggests the phrase comes from an earlier phrase, “if it takes a leg,” which was used by people seeking revenge at all costs. The “arm and a leg” version later appeared in a very literal way in American newspapers in the early 20th century, referencing disfiguring factory accidents.
By 1924, the phrase had turned more metaphorical, and “an arm and a leg” referred to exorbitant prices. An Oakland Tribune article said, “There is so much interest in the game and so few seats, compared to the number of persons who would almost give an arm or a leg to see it.” By the 1940s, the idiom was used far and wide in American society to describe an item that costs a surprisingly large amount of money, a usage that remains today.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
A sports team might be called by its city or mascot, but those aren’t only nicknames. They’re also examples of a figure of speech called “synecdoche.” Learn how you probably use this device every day.
When reading the morning paper’s sports section, you might see a headline that reads “New York Beats Boston.” Or after accidentally cutting yourself, you might shout, “I need a Band-Aid!” Both of these seemingly unrelated instances are examples of synecdoche (pronounced “sin-EK-doh-kee”), a figure of speech that’s used in one of two ways. A macrocosm synecdoche is when a larger part is substituted for smaller divisions, and a microcosm synecdoche is when a smaller part is used to refer to a larger whole,. Without context, a synecdoche can seem confusing and incomplete, but with context, it can be an effective communication tool.
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The Middle English term “synodoche” comes from a circa 1450 translation of the Old Testament, where its meaning was essentially the same as it is today. The modern English spelling appeared in The Worthy Communicant (1660) by Bishop Jeremy Taylor.
Using the brand name Band-Aid to refer to a bandage in general is an example of a microcosm synecdoche, where you use a very specific example as a stand-in for a larger category. Another example of a microcosm synecdoche is when you’re given the choice of “paper or plastic” while shopping. Even without mentioning the word “bag” it’s understood that the full question is asking the customer if they would prefer their groceries be packed in a paper bag or a plastic bag.
The fictitious newspaper headline “New York Beats Boston” is a macrocosm synecdoche, where a whole describes a small part. Here, the sports editor chose to use broader city terms to describe specific sports teams that play in each place. The abbreviated synecdoche remains clear given the overall context, and it fits more neatly than “The New York Yankees Beat the Boston Red Sox in Last Night’s Baseball Game.”
Be careful to avoid confusing a synecdoche with a metonymy, which is a similar but distinct grammatical concept that we’ll cover soon in an upcoming edition — stay tuned.
Featured image credit: Zhenny-zhenny/ Shutterstock
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
Picture Joe Pesci in Goodfellas: “I’m funny how? I mean, funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh?”
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After this memorable line, the mood shifts from amusement to bemusement, with the mobsters baffled as to why their colleague would be furious they laughed at his joke. If you’re amused, you’re having fun. But if you’re bemused, you might not be.
The two words look similar, but they aren’t as closely related as they appear. “Amuse” is borrowed from the French verb amuser, meaning “to entertain or to fool.” The English meaning of “amuse” (in all parts of speech) hasn’t strayed far from that, and generally indicates entertainment or diversion. For example, “The amusing magician amused the children at the amusement park.”
Meanwhile, “bemuse” comes from the Latin verb musare, meaning “to ponder.” From this root, we also get the words “muse” and “musing,” referring to thought and pensive reflection. Adding the prefix “be-,” meaning “to cause,” the word “bemuse” really makes you think. (Get it? Too Dad jokey?)
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This is where we also draw a connection to the Muses of Greek and Roman mythology — nine goddesses of inspiration. A now-archaic usage of “bemused” meant “devoted to the Muses,” but this is also the root of “museum,” which comes from the Greek mouseion, meaning “seat of the Muses.”
Even though the roots are different, and thus the words have different meanings, their similar appearance has caused similar usages over time. And when people use words in mistaken ways repeatedly, the definitions can shift. Merriam-Webster notes the confusion about “bemused” meaning “wryly amused” likely started with a 1735 poem by Alexander Pope, and it was repeated from there. However, he used “bemused” in 1705 referencing the Muses, so he did know the original intention of “making one think.”
When it comes down to it, these terms do have distinct roots and definitions (“amuse” means “to entertain,” and “bemuse” means “to confuse”), but the modern usage has evolved to have some crossover. For example, “I bemused the children with algebra lessons,” suggests the children are confused, or puzzled. But when I say, “Sometimes I find the rules of grammar bemusing,” I’m having fun with it. I know I certainly have been amused by things I don’t understand, especially in a museum.
Samantha Abernethy is a freelancer in Chicago. When she isn't staring at a laptop, you can find her sniffing out the best coffee with her greyhound Ruby, or chasing her kids around the nearest library.
The book and film Angels & Demons follows Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon as he thwarts the sinister plans of the Illuminati secret society by decoding ambigrams. Ambigrams are typographical designs that can be interpreted in two or more ways, depending on their orientation. Langdon analyzes clues in the form of ambigrams that intertwine science, religion, and the secret society. The word “Illuminati” itself is presented as an ambigram in marketing images for the movie, its font designed in a way that can be read the same when flipped upside down. Ambigrams of the four elements (“earth,” “air,” “fire,” and “water”) also feature prominently in the film, which raises the question: Can anything be turned into an ambigram?
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“Ambigram” comes from the Latin prefix ambi- (“both”) and the Greek suffix -gram (“drawing” or “writing”). This fusion of art and language turns into a format for calligraphers to create ambigrams from any word or phrase, but it isn’t without challenges. Even artist John Langdon, the artist who served as inspiration for Brown’s protagonist, struggled with designing some of the ambigrams used in the movie.
Langdon’s 1992 book, Wordplay: Ambigrams and Reflections on the Art of Ambigrams, popularized the linguistic trick and typographical design. His work examines various types of ambigrams, which can be read upside down, back to front, or in a mirror, depending on their design. Langdon manipulates symmetry, font, and visual perception to create his intricate designs. In Angels & Demons, the ambigrams serve as both visual puzzles and symbols of the duality of secret societies.
Not all ambigrams require such contortions — some occur naturally in English. The words “suns,” “yeah,” “dollop,” and “swims” remain readable upside down (perhaps depending on the font or legibility of the handwriting). Others create new words when flipped (still qualifying as ambigrams) — take a look at “WOW” and “MOM.” Still, artists take creative license to turn all sorts of words, phrases, and abbreviations into ambigrams in logos and artwork, making designs more engaging or memorable. Whether in literature, film, or marketing, this intersection of design and language continues to inspire.
Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering through a museum, exploring a new city, or advocating the importance of the Oxford comma.
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