Q My professor, referring to the imminent end of the semester, used the expression “the bird is on the wing.” Where does that come from? – B.C., Northampton, Mass.

A: Your professor was quoting “The Rubaiyat of Omar Kayyam,” as translated by Edward Fitzgerald and first published in 1859. Omar Kayyam was a mathematician and astronomer, born in Persia on May 18, 1048, who wrote a collection of four-line stanzas, called, individually, “ruba’i,” and in plural, “rubaiyat.” The word is based on the Arabic word for “four.”

Here is the stanza:

“Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring

The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:

The Bird of Time has but a little way

To fly – and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.”

The phrase “on the wing” (or the earlier “on wing”) has been used in English since at least the 1400s. “On the wing” in its literal sense, of course, means “in flight.” Figuratively, it has been used to mean both “ready to depart” and “on the move.” Fitzgerald and your professor were, of course, referring to the passage of time. To the best of our knowledge, Fitzgerald was the first to personify time as a bird, although his concept of time “flying” was not original. The overall tone of “The Rubaiyat” is essentially one of the futility of things, and the sense of time flying in the stanza refers to the ephemeral nature of life and the notion that time is but a fleeting thing.

Your professor’s narrower sense of time is not in strictest adherence to Fitzgerald’s connotation. But it doesn’t really matter – a bird on the wing is time flying, whether it’s a lifetime or an hour.

Q Why is “geese” the plural of “goose” while “moose” gets to be both singular and plural? – C.K., Iowa City, Iowa

A: Most of the oddities in English have historical explanations. What looks like an anomaly is often a remnant of an older system that once existed in the language. Plurals in which the vowel differs from the singular noun’s vowel are such remnants. Instead of adding an “s” to make a noun plural as we do now, Old English required that the vowel change. Some words, such as “goose,” have been in use since Old English and have maintained the pluralization used then; we see the same pattern in the plural of “foot” as “feet.”

“Moose,” however, is a relatively new word, adopted from one of the Algonquin languages by English speakers in North America. The word didn’t develop the same pattern of pluralization that Old English nouns had, but it also didn’t develop the more modern “-s” plural form. Instead, “moose” developed the so-called “zero” plural, in which no “s” is added. It’s possible that speakers opted for the zero plural of “moose” because the word’s resemblance to “goose” made “mooses” sound very odd to English speakers’ ears.

Q Is it true that “venom” once meant a magic potion? – M.K., Warwick, R.I.

A: It’s a bit more complicated than that. A number of Latin words are cognate with the name of “Venus,” whose name etymologically means “love.” One cognate was “venenum,” which in the mists of antiquity seems to have denoted a cosmetic or love potion. The latter sense is still broadly attested in classical times, but quite early “venenum” developed the sense of “poison.” It is in this sense that “venenum” is the ultimate ancestor of our word “venom.”

The evolution of sense from “love potion” to “poison” may not have stemmed solely from considerations of fatal attraction, for our word “poison” itself goes back to Latin “potio,” meaning “drink, drinking,” the source also of our word “potion.” The use of potions for dark magical purposes was no doubt a factor in the development of new senses for these words. “Potio” developed the sense “love potion” before becoming still more venomous in the form of its Old French descendant “poison,” the immediate source of our word “poison.”

QI have noticed that people in Pennsylvania often use the word “toot” to mean a grocery bag. I have never heard this word used this way anywhere else.

A: This word “toot” is completely different from the “toot” that has to do with blowing a horn. It has several meanings, among which are “a small paper bag” and “a piece of paper twisted into the shape of a cone and used as a temporary container (as for mustard).” This “toot,” which rhymes with “foot,” derives from Pennsylvania German “dutt,” which in turn comes from Middle Low German “tute,” meaning “horn-shaped object.” The word is most commonly used in the way you describe in those parts of Pennsylvania where the German influence is strongest.

Originally, “toot” described a container made of paper twisted into the shape of a cone. And “toot” was also once a word given to a paper cone of colored paper filled with candy and hung on a Christmas tree, as well as to a conical wafer, usually about five inches long, made to hold ice cream. Eventually, it came to describe a simple paper bag, particularly the kind used by grocers. Even today, however, the meaning “cone-shaped paper container” endures, and if we happen to be in the right place at the right time we might hear the cone that holds ice cream called an “ice cream toot.”

Q What is the correct way to handle numbers in writing? I run into trouble whenever I have to describe something of a numerical nature.

A: Over the years, writers and editors have formulated dozens of different rules for handling numbers. The problem is that many of those rules contradict each other, and it is often difficult to know which rule to follow.

In general, most writers follow one of two basic systems. Those who follow the first system spell out numbers up to nine, or perhaps up to 10, and then use numerals beginning with 10 or 11. In the other system, numbers are spelled out up to 99 or 100, and numerals are used for numbers beginning with 100 or 101. There are also rules that address specific situations involving numbers. Most writers spell out any number that begins a sentence, for example, with some making an exception for dates. A good style manual can be enormously helpful in sorting out all the complications.

This column was prepared by the editors of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.

Readers may send questions to Merriam-Webster’s Wordwatch, P.O. Box 281, 47 Federal St., Springfield, Mass. 01102.

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