Language is supposed to help us describe the world. So why does it leave us pointing at things and saying “that little plastic thingy”? Well, most of those things do have names. Precise, official, often ancient names that somehow never made it into everyday conversation. Here are thirteen of the best.
Zarf
The cardboard sleeve around a hot coffee cup. The word comes from Arabic and originally described an ornate metal holder used in the Ottoman Empire. Somewhere between then and your local coffee shop, it became corrugated cardboard.
Octothorpe
The # symbol. Before it was a hashtag, it was an octothorpe, a name invented by Bell Labs engineers in the 1960s. “Octo” refers to its eight points. “Thorpe” may honor Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe, or may simply be a word someone made up over coffee.
Aglet
The plastic tip at the end of a shoelace. Without it, the lace frays within days. From the Old French aiguillette, meaning “small needle.” In ancient Rome, wealthy people had aglets made of gold. Yours are plastic.
Ferrule
The metal band that holds the eraser onto a pencil. Also, the reinforcing cap on a walking cane or umbrella. From the Latin viriola, meaning “small bracelet.” It does exactly one job and does it without complaint.
Lunula
The pale crescent at the base of your fingernail. Latin for “little moon.” It contains nerves, blood vessels, and lymph. Its visibility varies with health and age.
Tittle
The dot above a lowercase i or j. A distinct typographic element derived from the Latin titulus. If you have ever lost a title to a font rendering error, now you know what to call your complaint.
Glabella
The smooth patch of skin between your eyebrows. Doctors use it as a clinical reference point. The rest of us use it to furrow.
Philtrum
The vertical groove from the base of your nose to your upper lip. Every human has one. Its name comes from the Greek word for love charm.
Punt
The indentation at the bottom of a wine bottle. It strengthens the bottle against internal pressure and helps collect sediment away from the pour.
Petrichor
The smell of rain on dry earth. Coined in 1964 by Australian scientists who identified the specific compounds responsible. One of the most universally recognized smells in the world, and one of the most recently named.
Nurdle
A small blob of toothpaste. The word became legally significant in 2010 when two major companies went to court over whose nurdle design belonged to whom. The case settled. The nurdle endures.
Agraffe
The wire cage holding the cork in a bottle of Champagne. It has kept corks in place since the 19th century and survived billions of celebratory openings. Remove it carefully.
Wamble
The unsettled, queasy feeling in your stomach, somewhere between nausea and hunger. Middle English in origin, and exactly as useful today as it was six hundred years ago.
Final thought
English has a word for almost everything. The problem is that most of those words are kept in a drawer and never used. These thirteen are too good to leave there.
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