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 writing for work. Nothing revolutionary here, just a few curiosities I enjoyed stumbling across, but still worth a quick mention since they don’t seem to be talked about a lot outside a few niche online forum discussions.

In contemporary American vernacular, 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’, a French word for describing the socioeconomic middle class but not necessarily from the perspective of wealth distribution alone. Rather for the materialistic aspirations and conventional attitudes that this group valued (said as historical observation, not judgment by any means). The bourgeoisie thus lived with awareness of their position between proletariat struggle and elite privilege.