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Fact-based Word Journeys
Pyjamas, pijama and pizhama all come from a Persian phrase for leg clothing, and the loose trousers it named were worn in the daytime long before anyone went to bed in them.
Fact-based How It Started
Long before plastic flying discs, people in Connecticut were said to be sailing empty pie tins from a Bridgeport bakery across the grass, and the bakery's name stuck.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Sugar in English, sakhar in Russian and azúcar in Spanish all grew from one Sanskrit word for grit and gravel, which travelled west with the sweet crystals themselves.
Fact-based How It Started
A chemist trying to make a super-strong glue made a very weak one instead, and it took a choir singer with runaway bookmarks to work out what it was for.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Magazine, the Spanish almacén and the Russian magazin all grew out of one Arabic word for a back room full of sacks, and only one of them ended up made of paper.
Fact-based Odd Places
Hot springs at Pamukkale have spent thousands of years laying a thin white skin of stone down a 200-metre cliff, building a staircase of shallow pools the colour of the sky.
Fact-based How It Started
The first one was a pair of wooden folding chairs on wheels with a basket on top, and shoppers refused to push it so firmly that the shop had to hire people to demonstrate.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Before it reached your cup, the word coffee travelled from Arabic into Turkish and then all over Europe, picking up a new spelling in almost every language.
Fact-based How It Started
Before it was squashed into dinosaurs and pretend pizzas, the world's favourite modelling dough was sold for rubbing soot off wallpaper.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Tomato, tomate and the Russian tomat all grew from one Aztec word, tomatl, while Russian also kept a second name that means golden apples.