The word tichon תיכון is of biblical origin, but the precise biblical usage isn't found much today. It means "middle", from t...

For anyone who is looking for a linguistic connection to Parashat Hashavua, I've indexed and labeled all the posts by parasha. Look for ...

The volcano is in the news again , and its cloud may even be getting close to Israel. But are we close to an etymological connection between...

The relationship between the United States and Israel is in the news often lately, so I thought I'd take a look at the Hebrew term for ...

Tomatoes are so ubiquitous in Israeli cuisine that you might think that the Hebrew word for them, agvania עגבניה, is as old as the language...

The Hebrew word for "spice" is tavlin תבלין, with the plural tavlinim תבלינים. This usage goes back to Talmudic times (e.g. Shab...

I was in Eilat last week, and while there I got to thinking about Yam Suf ים סוף. What's a better translation - Red Sea or Sea of Reeds...

I didn't mention it in the previous post, but pereg פרג (poppy / millet) isn't related to pargit פרגית (young chicken). Another un...

We just dealt with some words for crops of debated identity - here's another one, but with a Purim connection. Early in this site, we d...

One of my favorite topics to write about is the change of meaning in words relating to food. We've already seen that a melafefon origin...

Yesterday I was discussing the word parnasa פרנסה on the new Balashon Page on Facebook (please join!). I quoted my post on " pras and...

In the post about pashtida , we mentioned how in the Talmud, the verb טפל meant "to paste, to plaster" (dough in the example we br...

In the discussion of shibolet , we mentioned that the Radak described how the Eprhaimites pronounced the word improperly. Here's part o...

As I've mentioned before , William Safire was the first language writer I ever read, and a major inspiration for Balashon. Since his dea...

There are many theories as to the origin of the word "shlemiel" - an unlucky, clumsy person. (I'll stick with this spelling ov...