Consider the word “October” for a moment. Its root, okto, denotes the number eight: octagon, octopus, octave. So why is the tenth month of the year associated with the number eight? According to Inverness author Murray Suid’s book “Words of a Feather,” recently reprinted under a revived family label, language lagged behind the flow of history: October was the eighth month in the bygone Roman calendar.
Or have you ever wondered about the relationship between…