What’s a shoat? Before the Civil War, cookbooks included dozens of recipes for shoat. Today, this word for pork only appears glossaries for journalists covering agriculture. A shoat (also spelled shote) is a young pig under one year old. Antique words and old recipes, like antique tools or technology, illustrate changes in daily life. Weird old … Continue reading What’s a shoat?
Words come and go and meanings change over time. Exploring the story behind a word can illustrate changes daily life, social behavior, and technology over time. Introduce a word that has fallen out of daily use and ask students to guess the meaning. For example, words related to food and cooking change as technology and … Continue reading Saleratus, Pudding and a Gill: How Old Words Reflect a Changing World