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- idioms - For whom the bell tolls - origin of ask not instead of . . .
"Ask not for whom the bell tolls" is a popular cliche My understanding is that it comes from John Donne's Meditation XVII (1623) But in Donne's poem, the line is any man's death diminishes me,
- nouns - Why is the word pepper used for both capsicum (e. g. bell . . .
The Online Etymology Dictionary states that Latin piper is the source of the English word (as well as “German Pfeffer, Italian pepe, French poivre, Old Church Slavonic pipru, Lithuanian pipiras, Old Irish piobhar, Welsh pybyr, etc ”) It's ultimately from Sanskrit and originally referred to the Old World's Piper genus The New World's Capsicum genus came to be called “pepper” in the
- etymology - What is the origin of rings a bell? - English Language . . .
For example, he struck a bell when the dogs were fed If the bell was sounded in close association with their meal, the dogs learnt to associate the sound of the bell with food After a while, at the mere sound of the bell, they responded by drooling Another possible origin is the one this page advocates:
- What is the origin of the idiom with all the bells and whistles?
The Phrase Finder has an interesting assumption: Another possibility is that the expression derived from the work of the English cartoonist and sculptor Rowland Emett He created cartoons and contraptions, in a similar eccentric and whimsical style to the earlier artist, William Heath Given that 'bells and whistles' appears to be an American phrase, the archetypally English Emett might seem
- single word requests - What do you call the sound of a bell? - English . . .
If you wanted to describe the sound of a small brass bell that you can hold in your hand (this is an example image of what I mean - what word would you use? Brrring? Bling?
- etymology - What caused bell peppers to be called capsicums in some . . .
A person working in an Indian supermarket was shocked when I told her it's called Bell Pepper in the US, UK, Canada and Ireland I had to pull out Wikipedia to convince her it was true (Probably because she associated pepper with the spice ) What is the historical etymological explanation for this divergence in names between countries?
- Use of hardly. . . when - English Language Usage Stack Exchange
Pl see the sentence below [1] Hardly had the bell rung when Matthew started running out of his classroom I guess the construction is correct If I change this to [2] Hardly the bell had r
- grammar - Why go off, as in alarm went off? - English Language . . .
The picture is that the alarm is loud (a siren, bell, etc) and indicates danger of some sort In a computer system, an "alarm" might simply be a light or a sentence printed, but the mental picture still applies A light "goes on", so you might even see an indicator light "go on" indicating that an alarm has "gone off"
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