Tag: Language

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.

Gleam vs. Glean: At first glance, “gleam” and “glean” look like they should be related. But “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 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 the word bourgeois, a French term for the middle class. The bourgeoisie lived with a constant awareness of their position between the proletariat 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 in a superficial way.