Romance of words 8 min

There are other pieces in our curiosity shop of words. The human race has a passion for brevity. This shows itself in the eagerness with which we clip longer words and turn them into shorter ones. Our word curio that describes a sometimes rather expensive article is a shortened form of the word curiosity. Wig is from periwig, bus from omnibus, cab or taxi from taximeter-cabriolet. The tar who mans our warships is a clipped edition of tarpaulin, the tarred or painted canvas so often used on boats