Fat causes heart disease. This nutritional certainty dominated health advice for decades until emerging evidence suggested sugar is the real culprit. It’s incredulous that experts in the field provided incorrect guidance for so long.

In the 1950s, two scientists proposed competing theories. Ancel Keys claimed saturated fat causes heart disease. John Yudkin argued sugar poses the real threat. Keys happened to hold positions on influential health boards and directed research funds toward supporters. When Yudkin published evidence against sugar, Keys called it “a mountain of nonsense.” Siding with the loudest voice, the nutrition establishment marginalized Yudkin and his research.

I recently came across some examples of homonyms and oddities of English language that caught my attention while editing work memos. Nothing revolutionary here, just a few curiosities I enjoyed stumbling across, but still worth a quick mention since they don’t seem to appear outside a few niche forum discussions.

Gleam vs. Glean: At first glance, “gleam” and “glean” look like they should be related. “Gleam” refers to something shiny or bright e.g., sunlight “gleams” off a lake. “Glean”, on the other hand, is about slowly gathering or extracting information e.g., to “glean” insights from data.

In contemporary American usage calling someone “bougie” often carries a tone of light admiration. It suggests a life marked by taste financial comfort and upward mobility. Although there may be an undercurrent of teasing the label typically signals aspiration rather than criticism.

Historically the meaning was different. Bougie comes from bourgeois the French term for the middle class. The bourgeoisie lived with a constant awareness of their position between working-class struggle and elite privilege. Being bourgeois did not mean being powerful or glamorous. It meant striving aspiring and often imitating the habits of a higher class without fully belonging to it.