Mentioned at HotForWords! August 20, 2008

The latest lesson at HotForWords – a website run by Marina Orlova, a Russian-born philologist – was partially inspired by yours truly, Mike Chimeri.

It all began in the comment thread – where my profile name is MCLIJazz (as it is nearly everywhere else) – for a blog post promoting her latest appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor”, the primetime opinion show on the Fox News Channel hosted by Bill O’Reilly.  I am a big fan of “The Factor” and Bill himself.  In the post, Marina reminded visitors to e-mail Bill to let him know how much they liked her appearance on the show:

Also.. after you watch it, please email Bill and thank him for having me on.  Here is his email: …

So, I left the following comment:

Marina, your second appearance on “The Factor” rates as an A+.  You were excellent.
And if anybody is going to write to Bill, include your name and location (”name and town”) in the signature, and write about one to three short, punchy paragraphs or sentences.  Or as Bill would say, “keep it pithy.”

So, the latest video lesson is on the origin of the word “pithy”:

I get the “hat tip,” as we say in the blogosphere (typically abbreviated h/t), 40 seconds in:

MCLIJazz, mattym, annuddermale, prospero811, and mergatroidal have been using the word “pithy” all over my website.  What exactly is “pithy” and where did it come from?  HotForWords decided to investigate.

Watch the video for the investigation.  (Warning: Scary image beginning at the 2:30 mark.)