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• An image from The Canterbury Tales

Last week's column was the History of the English language in 5 Minutes, but I didn't quite make it in five, so today I'm going to finish it off—and hey, a history of English in two short columns isn't too shabby.

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In honor of International Mother Tongue Day coming up on February 21st—and I’m not making that up; the Day is recognized by the United Nations—today’s Word Odyssey is going to give you the history of the English language. No time to tarry….

"Flappy Bird," a highly addictive game, that flew to the top of apps lists for iPhones and Androids has stopped flapping. New players can no longer download the app but some birds keep flapping on the phones of players who downloaded the game before its creator, Dong Nguyen, took it down on Sunday.

According to cnet.com, more than 50 million people have downloaded "Flappy Bird," which generated billions of ads allegedly earning Nguyen $50,000 per day.

Nguyen told Forbes on Monday that the product had become addictive, "I think it has become a problem." The game was originally developed as a way to kill time. It turned into an obsession for many who spend countless hours flapping away.

The concept is simple. You guide the bird through an obstacle course of green metal pipes by tapping the screen to makes the bird's wings flap. Your score accumulates based on how many openings in the pipes that you fly through. The goal: to senselessly waste your life trying to beat your high score so you can brag to your friends who are also senselessly playing "Flappy Bird" every chance they can.

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In honor of Valentine’s Day, today I’m going to feed your inner nerd with romance, by which I mean a love affair.

The nerd community struggled with Zack Snyder's Man of Steel despite it being an overwhelming box office success. I know I had some issues with Kal-El's moral decisions — especially at the end — but at least it wasn't as bad as Richard Donner's third Superman movie. However, I never really considered what kind of impact the ultra violent Superman reboot would have on a child, or a baby for that matter.

A father decided to record his son's reaction to Superman flying for the first time, and you can see the infant become a lifelong comic book fan before your eyes. Hopefully, the little fan discovers the good Superman stories and avoids growing up to be a jaded, snobby fanboy like myself.

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Today I’m going to feed my inner nerd—and yours too—by exploring the history of a word that most of us say every day, many times over. Okay?

There's a bright, fun run in your future.

The Color Dash 5K is coming to Tucson this Saturday, Feb. 8, at Reid Park, 1100 South Randolph Way. The packet/registration starts at 8:30 a.m. The marathon starts at 10:30 p.m. The race registration fee and all of sponsorships goes to benefit Ben's Bells Kindness Programs.

This is how it works:

You will want to start the race with a shirt as clean and white as the first Minnesota snow but we will make sure that you soak up such a great deal of color that you may just end up being colored for life. Don’t be surprised if you even end up looking like a leprechaun tripped into that huge rainbow of color that he’s always searching for. It may be enough to get your feet moving and dance it off at the end of the DASH — whatever you do, let the colors move you!

We will warn you that even though you will start out as clean as a bar of soap, it will not last for long. As the DASH continues you will find yourself being covered in a spectrum of colors: blue, green, pink, orange and yellow. At each Kilometer during the DASH a new color explosion will add to the clean slate that you once were, until you come to the finish line and arrive into a final explosion of colors...so much in fact, that you will wonder if Iris sent Zeus himself to deliver the message.

We want to send two lucky Ranger readers to this family fun event.

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On February 1, 1884, the first fascicle, or volume, of one of the world’s greatest literary achievements was published: the Oxford English Dictionary, affectionately known as the OED. I’m not talking about the collegiate or other abridged versions of the OED, but rather the version completed in 1928 consisting of twelve hefty volumes and over 400,000 words—and not just words then in use, but all the obsolete English words too. Awesome. In honor of that anniversary, today’s column is devoted to the making of the OED.

I didn't know porcupines talked this much, if at all. I don't know what he's saying, except maybe, "Help, this lady is crazy! Need more bananas."

It’s nearly the anniversary of Winston Churchill’s death on January 24, 1965. When he was on his way out, Churchill commented that he was ready to meet his maker, but “whether my maker is ready for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.” Touché.