IT is considered quite normal for languages to borrow words from other languages. When a language takes words from other languages, these “new arrivals” are usually called borrowings or loan words.

If you look too closely, some English vocabulary just ceases to be logical. You use fanfare all your life, for instance, and then you stop and think: Wait—what does fan have to do with fare? Is that ...

When an Arizona weatherman used the Arabic word haboob to describe a Phoenix area dust storm, one outraged listener railed: “I am insulted that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a ...