Mitylene (Asia Minor) hectae electrum coins, ca. 500 B.C. (image public domain) By John Saul – WHY WAS ONE WORD USED FOR TWO SUBSTANCES? In former times the word electrum designated two substances which to us are very different. One was amber and the other was an alloy of gold […]
by Patrick Hunt Historical linguistics often surprises us about how old are some of the words we use today, especially when we might expect they were coined only within the last century or so. While some of these old words, either commonplace like “star” and “myth”, or not so common […]