Welcome to my new website.

To celebrate its birth, I am launching a new series of blog posts, called Titbits.

This will be a collection of both esoteric and once-commonly known facts of history that I unearth in my research for various fiction and historical fiction novels. I have had the delight to discover some very odd things, and it struck me that you, discerning readers, might also get a kick out of these oddities as well!

I will still be posting on Taste Life Twice about personal development and discovery through food and travel experiences, but much less frequently.  This will be the place for me to commune with you all on writerly themes. Huzzah!

For the first Titbit…

You may be wondering why I didn’t spell it “tidbit,” and of course there is a reason, North Americans!

The Grammarist says that both spellings are correct, but what I found interesting was the chatter in the comments:

“So tidbit predates, after all, any possibility of the prudish avoidance of the word tit (meaning boobies since 1928). Fascinating.”

I myself first called into question the ‘titbits’ spelling when I saw a writer friend in the UK use it. I recollected that plenty of people managed to talk about titmouses (titmice?) as birders, and that maybe it’s not such a big deal that it sounds like a slang term for women’s breasts (that I don’t use).

The same commenter vented about something I’ve experienced in looking for origins of words or phrases, too:

“It is immensely frustrating, trying to find real and reliable etymological research, primarily because of all the invented excrement to be waded through first.”

He was speaking of people making up their own etymological theories and passing them off as fact (something I am very good at when called for). Of course, that’s what the internet is…

Have you ever been looking for the source of an expression, like ‘gumshoe’ for detective or the ‘ha-ha‘ of the garden, and been frustrated by the lack of opinions, or the presence of widely varying ones? For a writer, I imagine this is one case where it might be best to get offline and to a library. What do you think?

As for titbits, I hope this series will pleasantly pique your interest for what my next novel will contain… outlandish guesses welcome!