World’s Strangest

Within our lexicon lives a library of forgotten stories, developed over centuries and tucked away in words. Thanks to the dirty impulses of our forefathers, quite a few of them also contain filthy chapters, making us the unwittingly foul-mouthed butt of their humor. Here are 10 of our language’s naughtier practical jokes. 1. Orchid Oops, you just [...]

Pill bottle image via Shutterstock ℞, sometimes transliterated as “Rx,” is an abbreviation of the Latin recipe, the command form of recipere, “to take.” Back in the days when most everyone in Europe used Latin, a doctor’s orders usually began with ℞ as an instruction to take specific ingredients and combine them to make a medicine [...]

Latin is a dead language, as dead as it can be. It killed the ancient Romans,and now it’s killing me! But it’s payback time. In July, The International Botanical Congress voted to relax the rules that required that all new plant species be named in Latin. This move breaks with a tradition that botanists had maintained [...]

N.B. is a common abbreviation for the Latin phrase nota bene — “note well”. It’s an old style of annotation that has sadly passed out of common use. David, the man with this tattoo, says of its meaning “that everything is better with footnotes.” This lovely sentiment so totally non-MLA standards compliant. Link

Scientists have unearthed the fossilized remains of a prehistoric bird with a wingspan of 17 feet! The Latin name given to the new species, Pelagornis chilensis means “huge pseudoteeth” because it had bony tooth-like projections. The enormous wingspan gave P. chilensis certain advantages, like the ability to travel long distances and reach areas of the open [...]

Since the early days of Internet history, web addresses have only been available in languages that used the Latin alphabet, such as English and French. But on Friday, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) — an organization that provides international oversight for the Internet — agreed to allow web addresses with non-Latin [...]

• New Yorkers may consume more hot dogs than other Americans, but ballpark goers will eat enough at major league ballparks this year to stretch to and from Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia and Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., the two sites of the 2008 World Series. • But what exactly is a hot [...]