Question: Why is someone who explores caves as a hobby called a "spelunker?"Answer: We borrowed "spelunker" from the Latin "spelunca," which in turn derives from the Greek "spelynx." When you get to the bottom of things, you find that both the Latin and Greek roots mean "cave."
"Spelunker" started out in American around the 1940s as an alternative to the more formal "speleologist." As the popularity of the noun grew, it spawned the verb "spelunk" and the gerund "spelunking" as back-formations.
Question: I've always been uncertain of a phrase. Is it "worse comes to worst" or "worst comes to worst?" The first makes more sense, but I think most people say the second.
Answer: The phrase you ask about, meaning that if the worst that can happen does happen, has so many variants that it's impossible to know just what might be considered the proper version.
The expression was first recorded in 1597 as "if the worst come to the worst." Presumably a desire to make the phrase more logical gave rise to the variant "if the worse comes to the worst." English novelist Daniel Defoe is credited with the first printed use of that version in 1719 when it appeared in Robinson Crusoe: "If the worse came to the worst, I could but die."
The peculiar phrase has been unwilling to settle into a fixed form. "If worse comes to worst" and "if worst comes to worst" are the most common variants, but we've also heard "if worse comes to worse." Nowadays the definite articles are omitted from the phrase more often than not.
Question: When I was a little girl, my grandparents used to use the phrase "send a person to Coventry." It basically meant that the person was being cut off from the group. Can you tell me where this phrase came from.
Answer: The origin of this phrase is difficult to pinpoint. Since the 17th century, "to send (someone) to Coventry" has meant to ostracize, but it isn't clear why. One story claims the phrase arose because Royalist prisoners were sent to Coventry (a Parliamentary stronghold) during the British civil war, but a competing explanation says the phrase stems from the fact that townspeople in Coventry were once so anti-military that soldiers there were treated as complete outcasts.
Coventry is the setting for a more common expression, "Peeping Tom." Coventry is considered to have been founded in the 11th century by Lady Godiva and her husband, Leofric, Earl of Mercia. According to legend, the kindhearted Godiva begged her husband to reduce the heavy taxes on the townspeople of Coventry. Exasperated, he declared he would do so only if she rode naked through the marketplace. After telling the townsfolk to remain indoors for the duration of the ride, Godiva took to her white horse. One fellow, a prying tailor by the name of Tom, gazed out his window at the fair Godiva and was said to have been struck blind (or dead) for his prurience.
The term "Peeping Tom" caught on near the end of the 18th century
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