Why is pineapple in English but ananas in all other languages? The question is: why did the English adapt the name pineapple from Spanish (which originally meant pinecone in English) while most European countries eventually adapted the name ananas, which came from the Tupi word nanas (also meaning pineapple)
Why do eleven and twelve get unique words and not end in -teen? Why don't these words fit the pattern of thirteen through nineteen? [Answer to 1] A remarkably thorough answer to (1) appears at Why do eleven and twelve get unique words and not end in "-teen"?
“John Doe”, “Jane Doe” - Why are they used many times? There is no recorded reason why Doe, except there was, and is, a range of others like Roe So it may have been a set of names that all rhymed and that law students could remember Or it could be that they were formed from a mnemonic, like the english pronouciation of a prayer or scripture in Latin Greek
Why was Spook a slur used to refer to African Americans? I understand that the word spook is a racial slur that rose in usage during WWII; I also know Germans called black gunners Spookwaffe What I don't understand is why Spook seems to also mean 'ghos
idioms - The times are a-changing? Why a-? - English Language Usage . . . While listening to Bob Dylan songs I've heard some strange use of progressive tense (is that the correct term?), the title of this question is one example Why "the times are a-changing" and not "the times are changing"? I heard other examples (always in Bob's songs), but now I cannot find any Is this some sort of ancient English? Slang
Why does No mean Number? - English Language Usage Stack Exchange Why does English use "No " as an abbreviation for "Number"? It's a preserved scribal abbreviation like the ampersand (formed by eliding the letters of et to mean and) The OED has it in use from the 8th century, based on the ablative numerō used for an implied preposition in: X in or according to number It also gets used by the French based on numéro, which produced Wiktionary's erroneous