Answer: Either.

Explanation:
Fount is short for fountain as a spring flows from the earth; metaphorically, it refers to a continuous source of something or other. A font, in this context, is more of a reservoir, like the baptismal font. So, although the original expression was “fount of all wisdom,” either works, depending on whether you consider someone to be an eternal source of wisdom or just a sort of holding tank for it. In either case, we often use “fount of all wisdom” sarcastically, implying that they may not be quite as wise as they are deemed to be.

I thought of writing this post because I referred to George Bush as a fount of malapropisms and other errors yesterday in a conversation on Twitter and then wondered about the relationship between the words fount and font.

They both derive from the Latin fons for fountain but came different routes:

From Merriam-Webster:
Fount: Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin font-, fons, from Latin, fountain
Font: Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin font-, fons, from Latin, fountain

I’m inclined toward fount, myself, but as Maeve Maddox wrote in her post Fount of Wisdom, “Do you see the figurative source of wisdom or information as a welling spring of water, or as a filled basin? I’ll stick with fount, but I’d hesitate to fault the speaker/writer who goes with font.”

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Answer: c.

Explanation:
Per se is a Latin phrase meaning by or in itself. For example, drinking a liter of vodka is not illegal per se but you cannot legally drive a car after doing so. And before you try this experiment at home, you should be aware that it could also lead to other ill-advised behaviors.

Online, something like 432,000 people seem to think the term is spelled per say. Other misspellings include perse, perce, persay and persai.

See our cheat sheet for more handy Latin phrases.

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Answer: a.

Explanation:
To augur is to indicate or predict from signs or omens; augury is the practice of doing so. An auger, on the other hand, is a type of device used to drill holes.

In ancient Rome, an augur was a priest who foretold events by interpreting natural phenomena, such as the entrails of sacrificial birds. (I had to hold myself back from saying “foretold future events” but, really, what other kind could you foretell?)

There are a couple of theories about where the word came from. One is that it derives from an Old Latin (There’s my thing learned for today — there was Old Latin before the Latin that we think of as pretty old itself) word for increase because augury was often used to predict the likelihood of crop increases. (That’s where the word augment comes from.) The other theory is that augur comes from avi and geros, meaning “directing the birds.”

The interesting thing about auger is that it used to be nauger but somehow a nauger was split up incorrectly as an auger. That’s just one of many entertaining facts in @EditorMark’s Twitter Archive.

The nauger reminds me of a joke about a nobby in Cathleen Schine’s The Three Weissmans of Westport. Which I think I’m going to have to post about separately because I’ve gotten sidetracked enough for one post.

There’s more information about augurs and augury in the Wikipedia entry.

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