Bitumen goes way back, and specifically in that region it fits your timeline. Asphalt - Wikipedia
Common word with all the vowels in order exactly once, including y: facetiously (there are others, abstemiously probably being the next most...
The collection was mostly burned away in 48 BC when Julius Caesar sacked Alexandria. Seneca and Plutarch both wrote in the first century AD about...
With many countries, part of it is explained by miles driven. For instance, Belgium has 6.7 auto accident fatalities per 100,000 people each...
The US is pretty middle of the pack as far as public health goes, relative to Western Europe. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, France,...
I agree. On the other hand, it's important to remember that not all (or even most) readers are writers. I try to limit truly unusual words to...
Another explanation for sugar in a cooler climate would be the earlier production of the sugar beet; in our world, it wasn't until the early 1800s...
What about just "head off with Fitz somewhere else" or "sneak off/go off/run off/etc..."? FWIW, I'm a 40-something American native and "go stag"...
Balloons could be enchanted or enhanced somehow, or wind currents controlled to make normal balloons more practical. It's a fantasy world, you...
I use it habitually, but there are times when it can cause more ambiguity than the alternative. Tweaking the example from above, if you make the...
Dry wine just means that it isn't sweet; it shouldn't be bitter. You're probably reacting more to tannins than to dryness; they're a byproduct of...
Man vs. Nature is a classic way of handling this in literature. The Martian was a book before it was a movie. There are a bunch of children's...
She's pulling your leg--unless you're headed to a peninsula or island location (e.g. Juneau), driving to Alaska is no problem. The Alaska-Canada...
There's a bit more precise definition than just "books with chapters"; "chapter books" are the interim books between picture books/See Spot Run...
