Comments on: What’s in a President’s Name? Ask a Wordsmith

By: Chaitan

Chaitan — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:52:16 +0000

Thanks for this post Sandhya. I love the wordsmith site. I’m subscribing right away!

By: Quizman

Quizman — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:51:35 +0000

I’ve been a subscriber of AWAD for many years. Along with the daily dose of words, I find the AWAD weekly compilation of letters most illuminating. It is not uncommon to find professors, WW II veterans, scientists, designers writing letters to Mr. Garg. Amazing stuff. You can read the archive of the letters here.

Btw, you folks do know where the word Maverick comes from, don’t you?

Samuel Augustus Maverick (July 23, 1803â€“September 2, 1870) was a Texas lawyer, politician, land baron and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. From his name comes the term “Maverick”, first cited in 1867, which means independent minded. Maverick was considered independent minded by his fellow ranchers because he refused to brand his cattle. In fact, Maverick’s failure to brand his cattle had little to do with independent mindedness, but reflected his lack of interest in ranching. X’s stated reason for not branding his cattle was that he didn’t want to inflict pain on them. Other ranchers however, suspected that his true motivation was that it allowed him to collect any unbranded cattle and claim them as his own.

By: curly

curly — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:34:24 +0000

Thanks for the post! Subscribed right away and found it a fun site…love the quotes as well!

By: Ardy

Ardy — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:20:11 +0000

I wouldn't say all languages are Indo-European, though.

Wonder what prompted that comment. No, there are plenty of non Indo-European languages out there. The Dravidian group of languages including Tamil itself do not fall under the IE branch.

Another tidbit that I have heard is that Lithuanian and Sanskrit have a lot more in common than one would think.

By: Amrita

Amrita — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:40:08 +0000

Thanks so much for this post, Sandhya! I signed up right away, and am totally canceling my other word subscription, which keeps sending me words I already know. This is definitely the meatiest wordy site I’ve seen. I wouldn’t say all languages are Indo-European, though.

By: Penelope Cruz

Penelope Cruz — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:54:12 +0000

had been a subscriber to a "word a day" for quite sometime and indeed words & wordplaying can border on obsession just as video games. Considering Anu's word acumen wonder whether he cracks crosswords with ease ?

By: MG

MG — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:15:38 +0000

didn’t care for the post, but thanks for pointing me to the wordle tool. Its great, been playing with it for the past 3 hours. Haven’t really figured how/what i can use it?

By: non-sequitur

non-sequitur — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:34:45 +0000

thanks for wordle link. thats an awesome tool.