One of my favorite things to eat is pasta. I could eat fettuccine, linguine, penne and farfalle every day and not ever get tired of it!

Stewart Edelstein, the author of Dubious Doublets: A Delightful Compendium of Unlikely Word Pairs of Common Origin, from Aardvark/Porcelain to Zodiac/Whiskey has created a fun pasta quiz on Merriam-Webster online. As you take the quiz, you’ll notice that the origins of many of the Italian words for the various pastas derive from Latin. This is because Italian is a Romance language. Other Romance languages include Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Romance languages come from Vulgar Latin (vulgus is a Latin noun that means “common people” or “general public”), a form of Latin that was spoken by commoners in Rome during the 2nd – 4th centuries.

Take the quiz and be sure to let me know how you did!

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Do you know your colors?

Saffron (the color of turmeric powder)

Cerise

Verdigris

Scarlet

This week I decided to do a post on unusual colors. Everybody knows the basic colors (red, blue, etc.), but how about scarlet, cerise, saffron and verdigris? I’ve included pictures to show you what the colors look like. Vote for your favorite in my poll below!

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Words that will make you laugh!

I think that these words are super funny sounding! They make me giggle when I say them because they are so strange. I challenge you to use these words in everyday life and I guarantee they will make you smile. Vote for your favorite word!

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Greek god and goddess poll

I decided to put this poll in my blog since I am exploring words that come from Greek mythology. I also thought that it would be interesting to see which god or goddess people would like to be.