A young woman who has dedicated her career to helping others create strong and healthy bodies wondered at an expression that comes out of her own mouth regularly: Indian-style. (来源：英语学习门户网站EnglishCN.com)

If she instructs her clients to sit Indian style, is she instructing them to sit as natives of the Indian subcontinent do or is she harkening back to the Native Americans who were living on this continent when the first Europeans came over? Sit down and relax while we do some linguistic legwork.

It turns out we can thank European explorers for reporting that the aboriginal peoples of America sat cross-legged on the ground, that is, with their bottoms on the ground, legs crossed, and knees open wide.

In addition to Indian style and cross-legged, this sitting style also is known as tailor-fashion (presumably after the way a tailor might sit to sew). This name is recognized by students of physical anatomy, who learn the longest muscle in man is the sartorius (sartor means "tailor" in Latin), or tailor muscle—it assists in rotating the leg to the position assumed when sitting like a tailor.

Sit tall and send us your word questions.