Wordorigins.org

Did you ever think that Ring Around The Rosie makes reference to the Black Death of the Middle Ages? Or that the whole nine yards refers to the length of a machinegun ammo belt? Or perhaps that Eskimos have 500 words for snow? If so, then you have been taken in by a linguistic urban legend. Like classic urban legends, these linguistic legends are popular and pervasive. Wordorigins.org is devoted to the origins of words and phrases, or as a linguist would put it, to etymology. Check out http://www.wordorigins.org