tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553191495231970792024-03-18T20:46:31.495-07:00Take Our Word For It BlogThis is the companion blog to the Take Our Word For It webzine (http://www.takeourword.com)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-89156449881378682032015-01-01T16:08:00.002-08:002015-01-03T10:55:01.706-08:00Why is Quinoa Pronounced As Though It Were French?<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOjIGoqJ7rdWcEfVpAnT66lJQazRCwU1K868SQqNnjzL-2kMloLMlI25XcWOWUI9GmuwHZCtQMWUHuqaMcus4WUu1COFkfouthTBcu4RmtP5_XywlwTpRfS0Sn8WKsPYZm04joA0XXohp/s1600/640px-Harvested_seeds_of_homegrown_Chenopodium_quinoa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOjIGoqJ7rdWcEfVpAnT66lJQazRCwU1K868SQqNnjzL-2kMloLMlI25XcWOWUI9GmuwHZCtQMWUHuqaMcus4WUu1COFkfouthTBcu4RmtP5_XywlwTpRfS0Sn8WKsPYZm04joA0XXohp/s1600/640px-Harvested_seeds_of_homegrown_Chenopodium_quinoa.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Quinoa. Photo credit Christian Guthier</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The shibbolethic (is that a word? It should be!) pronunciation of <i>quinoa </i>has puzzled me for some time. How does a word that came to English from Spanish end up being pronounced as though it were French? I would expect it to be spelled <i>quinois </i>based on the English pronunciation alone. I did some research and found that I am not the only person perplexed by this issue. Others have asked the question in various on-line forums. Is there a satisfactory answer?<br />
<br />
<i>Quinoa </i>came to English from Quechua via Spanish. Quechua is a native language family of South America, with most speakers living in the Andes. The OED says that <i>Quechua </i>was the name of a specific group of people who spoke the language, and the word came to refer to the language itself. The name of the native group is said, by several sources, to mean "people who live in a temperate valley" (which is where, I think, one would want to live if one were in the Andes hundreds of years ago).<br />
<br />
The Quechua word for "quinoa" is <i>kínuwa </i>"KEEN-u-wah". You can see where the "-wah" pronunciation arose. The central <i>u </i>sound was eventually elided in English, and the result was pronounced "KEEN-wah". However, in America, we like to stress the final syllable of French and French-like words (<i>ballet</i>, <i>pâté</i>, <i>gourmet</i>), so for some speakers here it became "keen-WAH". In the UK most speakers keep the accent on the first syllable (as they also do with <i>ballet</i>, <i>pâté</i>, and <i>gourmet</i>) and so they stuck with "KEEN-wah" for the most part.<br />
<br />
That explains the pronunciation, but what about the spelling? The earliest Spanish spelling was <i>quinua </i>("keen-OOH-ah"), but a contemporary form was <i>quínoa </i>("KEEN-oh-ah"). While the former spelling hung around in English for some time, after turning up in the late 16th century, <i>quinoa </i>appeared by the late 18th century and eventually became the preferred spelling. <br />
<br />
If you want people to think you know what you're talking about pronounce it "KEEN-wah" or "keen-WAH". If you don't care, good for you! Having knowledge of Spanish and Spanish pronunciation, I always wanted to pronounce it "keen-OH-ah", but now that I've determined whence the "-wah" pronunciation came, I may eventually train myself to say it that way, though I still find myself, on seeing the word in print, saying "keen-OH-ah".<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3UATWn8P1AXugFFQR1x6Uq3q4cFoZVIF0GlKny6yVWSN0JWGCGazQ6Xz4n6Dq6ect5Thyb33w679dakpZVUGmROqa_6iTQJEZfzUesWB0GEu48fdWgUaDyYpvtprXIwrqSUTD4ZnpAhks/s1600/640px-Jerky_(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3UATWn8P1AXugFFQR1x6Uq3q4cFoZVIF0GlKny6yVWSN0JWGCGazQ6Xz4n6Dq6ect5Thyb33w679dakpZVUGmROqa_6iTQJEZfzUesWB0GEu48fdWgUaDyYpvtprXIwrqSUTD4ZnpAhks/s1600/640px-Jerky_(1).jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jerky. Photo credit Larry Jacobsen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Quechua gave other words to English. <i>Jerky</i>, as in <i>beef jerky</i>, comes from Quechua <i>charki</i> "dried, salted meat." It entered English via Spanish and first turns up in the written record in the late 19th century.<br />
<br />
<i>Puma </i>"mountain lion" is another word borrowed from Quechua, and it was even used to name the genus of which the mountain lion, <i>Puma concolor</i>, is a member. The word made it, in the same form as in English (17th c.), into French (17th c.), Italian (18th c.), and even German (18th c.), via Spanish. <br />
<br />
The one word that seems it should have come from Quechua to English, <i>potato</i> (because the tuber originated in the Andes), did not, but it instead came from a native Caribbean language. In that language, Taino, <i>batata </i>was the word for the indigenous sweet potato. English adopted that tuber, along with the Taino word for it, turning it into <i>potato</i>, in the mid-16th century. John Ayto, in his <i>Dictionary of Word Origins </i>(1990), tells us that the potato mentioned in Shakespeare's <i>Merry Wives of Windsor</i> was, in fact, the sweet potato (and it was considered an aphrodisiac!). It wasn't until the end of the 16th century that the word <i>potato </i>settled upon <i>Solanum tuberosum</i>, what we know today as the potato. However, the Quechua word for "potato", <i>papa</i>, did enter Spanish and it became the standard name for the potato in the Spanish-speaking world. In mainland Spain, though, <i>patata</i> took over in the late 19th century.<br />
<br />
Before I close, there is that word <i>shibboleth</i>. What a lovely word—rather unusual looking and odd sounding among other English words. It is, as you may know, from Hebrew, and it entered English from the Bible. It was a word used by the Gileadites to detect their enemies, the Ephraimites, because the Ephraimites could not pronounce it properly. <i>Shibboleth</i> came to mean, in English, any word that had an unusual pronunciation that outsiders did not know. Such words were used to identify and exclude the outsiders. <i>Shibboleth </i>came to English in the 14th century. More recently it has come to mean any dated or outmoded practice or belief that is still held.<br />
<br />
Today's link of interest: <a href="http://bit.ly/1xjJpc2" target="_blank">It Wasn't All Nasty, Brutish and Short</a>—the real story on Anglo-Saxon four-letter words.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-7695419628603758952014-07-21T22:30:00.001-07:002014-07-24T10:41:26.388-07:00Our Dear Old Al-<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/local-honey-for-allergy-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/local-honey-for-allergy-1.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Allergies-does local honey help? <a href="http://bit.ly/1nvJNjS" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1nvJNjS</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Allergy season in the Northern Hemisphere has been upon us for some time (though one member of the <i>Take Our Word For It</i> household is allergic to everything and sneezes year-round). Seeing antihistamines around every corner in the local stores, touting their effects against allergies, made me wonder about the word <i>allergy</i>. Whence does it derive? I was rather surprised to find that it was coined by a German scientist (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clemens_von_Pirquet" target="_blank">C. E. von Pirquet</a>) in 1906! He formed it from the Greek words <i>allos</i> "other, different" and <i>ergon</i> "work, activity" suggesting "different activity" or "changed activity." The OED says that the original meaning was "altered immunological reactivity to a foreign antigen following previous exposure to it." This meaning quickly evolved to "hypersensitivity </span><span style="font-size: large;">that results in some sort of disorder (such as hayfever)," and then "intolerance of or adverse reaction to a specific substance, especially a food."</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Allosaurus_BW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Allosaurus_BW.jpg" height="115" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Allosaurus - <a href="http://bit.ly/Uo67iA" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/Uo67iA</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We see Greek <i>allos </i>in other English words. There is </span><span style="font-size: large;">
<i>allosaurus</i> "other lizard," named because its vertebrae were different from those of other dinosaurs found to date. <i>Allegory</i> comes from Greek <i>allos</i> + <i>agoros</i> "speak" (derived from the "open public space" sense), giving us the etymological meaning "to say something other than what one seems to be saying." One can see how that came to mean "the use of symbols in a story, picture, etc., to convey a hidden or ulterior meaning, typically a moral or political one," as the OED defines it today.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Greek <i>allos</i> goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root *<i>al-</i> "beyond, other." We can just make it out in English <i>else</i>, which dates from Old English. It's not quite as easy to see in <i>other.</i> That derives from a variant form of *<i>al-</i>, *<i>an-</i>, plus a suffix that meant "two," giving us <i>anthara- </i>with the sense "other of two." It's a bit easier to see <i>other</i> in that. *<i>Al-</i> is also the root of Latin <i>ultra</i> "beyond." Relatives of <i>ultra</i> include <i>ulterior</i> (etymologically meaning "further beyond") and <i>ultimate</i> ("the furthest").</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Auguste_Comte.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Auguste_Comte.jpg" height="320" width="221" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">August Comte - <a href="http://bit.ly/1rx1qSh" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1rx1qSh</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />The "other of two" derivation shows up again in <i>alter</i>, which English borrowed from Latin <i>alter</i>. John Ayto* says the etymological sense of <i>alter</i> is "more other" with an implied alternation between two. <i>Altercation </i>"argument (with another)" comes from the same source, via Latin <i>altercari</i>. <i>Alternate </i>has the etymological sense "every other" and derives from Latin <i>alter </i>+ -<i>nus</i>, an adjectival suffix. <i>Altruisim </i>is the odd man out. While it comes ultimately from Latin <i>alter</i>, it came to English from French <i>altruisme</i> and was coined from French <i>autrui</i> "somebody else, other." The "l" from Latin <i>alter </i>was inserted in place of the<i> u</i> in a kind of hypercorrection with the knowledge of <i>alter </i>as the ancestor. The word was first used by Auguste Comte, the founder of the field of sociology, in 1852.</span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://wscdn.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/assets/images/2010/08/31/100831162029_john_ayto_biog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://wscdn.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/assets/images/2010/08/31/100831162029_john_ayto_biog.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://bbc.in/1my8feB" target="_blank">John Ayto</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There is also an "other of more than two" sense that derives from </span><span style="font-size: large;">*<i>al-</i>. We see this in English <i>alien</i>, etymologically "of or belonging to others (persons or places)." In researching this word, I learned, again from John Ayto (love that guy!), that there was a variant form, <i>alient</i>, but it died out. He likens it to <i>ancient</i>, <i>pageant</i>, and <i>tyrant</i>, which were previously <i>ancien</i>, <i>pagean</i>, and <i>tyran </i>until that same final <i>t</i> was added in the 15th century. This was apparently a learned alteration, referring back to Latin participial forms. <i>Alias</i> ("other (name)") is another in this *<i>al-</i> subfamily, as is <i>alibi</i>. The latter arose from the locative form of Latin <i>alius</i> "other" with the meaning "elsewhere" ("other place"), so that an <i>alibi </i>is etymologically one's explanation of being "elsewhere" when a crime occurred.<br />
</span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Going back to the simpler "other" meaning of *<i>al-</i>, we find <i>adultery</i>. This may be unexpected, but it is thought to derive from the Latin phrase<i> ad alterum</i> "(approaching) another (unlawfully)," where <i>ad</i> means "to, toward". Latin <i>adulterare </i>also had the broader sense "defile, pollute" which carried into English as <i>adulterate</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Additional "other of two" words are <i>parallel </i>and <i>parallax</i>. <i>Parallel </i>means, in an etymological sense, "beside each other," with <i>parallel</i> being formed from <i>para</i>- "beside" and <i>allelon </i>"each other," which comes from that Greek term we've already encountered, <i>allos</i>. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The OED defines </span><i><span style="font-size: large;">parallax</span></i><i style="font-size: x-large;"> </i><span style="font-size: large;">as "difference or change in the apparent position or direction of an object as seen from two different points." </span><i><span style="font-size: large;">Parallax</span></i><i style="font-size: x-large;"> </i><span style="font-size: large;">was formed from Greek <i>para</i>- + <i>allasein</i></span><i style="font-size: x-large;"> </i><span style="font-size: large;">"to change, exchange" from the sense "alternate" that arose from </span><i><span style="font-size: large;">allos</span></i><span style="font-size: large;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />There are four other Proto-Indo-European roots known as *<i>al-</i> with different meanings, so do not assume all words beginning with *<i>al-</i> are related to the *<i>al-</i> discussed at length here. The second *<i>al-</i> (known as *<i>al-<sup>2</sup></i>) has the etymological meaning of "to wander," and *<i>al-<sup>3</sup></i> means "to grow, nourish." *<i>Al-<sup>4</sup></i> is "to grind, mill" and *<i>al-<sup>5</sup></i> is "all." None is as prolific a supplier of English words as our dear old *<i>al-</i> (known as *<i>al-<sup>1</sup></i>).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This week's link of interest is James Somers' piece on the beautiful language of old dictionaries: <i><a href="http://jsomers.net/blog/dictionary" target="_blank">You're Probably Using the Wrong Dictionary</a></i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">*See <i>Take Our Word For It</i>'s <a href="http://www.takeourword.com/bibliography.html" target="_blank">bibliography</a>.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-30615351948621688132014-05-27T20:36:00.000-07:002014-05-28T07:12:54.764-07:00Mommy, What's a Codpiece?When we once entertained the notion of writing a short book of Ren Faire (short for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_fair" target="_blank">Renaissance Fair</a><u>e</u>) terms, <i>Mommy, What's a Codpiece? </i>was the title we considered. There are several words, bandied about at such fairs, whose etymology we have often wondered about. Since it is now the season of Ren Faires, it is the perfect time to analyze some of those words.<br />
<br />
<i>Codpiece</i>, of course, is the first to come to mind. Most of us know what it is - the OED Online defines it as<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A bagged appendage to the front of close fitting hose or breeches worn by men of the 15th to 17th c.: often conspicuous or ornamented.</blockquote>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Giovanni_Battista_Moroni_009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Giovanni_Battista_Moroni_009.jpg" height="320" width="272" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.318559646606445px; text-align: left;">Codpiece-Antonio Navagero (1565), from Wikipedia</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Men of the period wore hose or leggings, and a longish coat or jacket over those. The hose were not joined at the crotch, so the genitals could be exposed, but the naughty bits were, in the beginning, covered by the length of the jacket (doublet). However, fashion tastes brought about a rise in the hemline of the doublet. Once it started approaching the tops of the thighs, men risked exposing their genitals as they mounted and dismounted their horses and during other activities. Thus the codpiece was born. It was originally a simple triangle of cloth laced to the gap in the hose, but with time it grew larger and more ornate, and it even acquired padding. As tastes changed, the codpiece eventually went out of fashion, but it can still be seen today in period clothing, and also among certain groups such as heavy metal rockers and superheroes (certain versions of Batman in film, for example).<br />
<br />
The word <i>codpiece </i>is, etymologically, "a piece for the scrotum or testicles," as <i>cod </i>is the Old English word for "testicle" by transference from its previous meaning, "scrotum." The "scrotum" meaning arose from the word's earlier, broader sense of "pouch." <i>Codpiece</i> dates from the late 15th century, while <i>cod </i>turns up in the written record around 1000. One could say that a <i>codpiece</i> is a "piece for the pouch"!<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.lady-faire.com/bodices/Navy%20bodice%20detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.lady-faire.com/bodices/Navy%20bodice%20detail.jpg" height="320" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bodice-http://www.lady-faire.com/bodices.html</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Now let us give womenswear some attention. Why is the <i>bodice </i>so named? You may be surprised to learn that it is a doublet (having the same etymological roots) of the word <i>bodies</i>. The term <i>bodice</i> was originally <i>a pair of bodies,</i> as this article of clothing came in two pieces that were joined and laced up the front and back. The phrase was truncated to <i>bodies</i> and then the spelling altered to <i>bodice. </i>The word <i>bodice </i>was treated as a plural (like <i>dice </i>and <i>mice</i>) for quite some time. The plural of the word <i>body</i> was used because this particular garment clothed the body (or trunk), as distinct from the arms, legs and head. The term dates from the mid-16th century.<br />
<br />
The word <i>doublet </i>was mentioned in the discussion of <i>codpiece</i> above (and again in the discussion of <i>bodice</i>, but that is a different <i>doublet</i>). Why was the men's jacket of the Renaissance called a <i>doublet</i>? English borrowed it from French (same spelling) in the early 14th century, and the French had so named it because it was made of fabric that was doubled or folded and quilted. The <i>-et</i> suffix of <i>doublet</i> makes it a diminutive of <i>double</i>.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.gogmsite.net/_Media/1595-1605-lady-identified_med.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.gogmsite.net/_Media/1595-1605-lady-identified_med.jpeg" height="320" width="206" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Farthingale. http://bit.ly/1js2gq1 </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Back to women's clothing - what is a <i>farthingale</i>? It is a hooped petticoat, the hoops often being made of whalebone. The hoops lifted a woman's skirts away from the body, in a bell shape. Where did its name come from? A person? A place? None of the above. In fact, it derives ultimately from Spanish <i>verdugado</i>, from <i>verdugo</i> "rod, stick," referring to the whalebone or cane sticks/rods used. It came to English in the mid-16th century via the French form, <i>verdugale</i>.<br />
<br />
If you've ever read Stellar and Yeatman's <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_and_All_That" target="_blank">1066 and All That</a></i>, a humorous look at British history, you may recall that everyone seemed to die from eating a <i>surfeit </i>of something. Was a <i>surfeit </i>a bowl, or a plate? Or a particular method of food preparation? No, it was an "excessive consumption of food or drink" per the OED. That meaning is considered obsolete now, but it was more common during the Renaissance. It also refers to an excessive quantity of anything. It derives ultimately from French <i>sur-</i> which is equivalent to Latin <i>super- </i>+ <i>faire </i>"to do, act," with the combined meaning "do something excessively." The association with food and drink appears to have been attached to the word when it came to English in the late 14th century.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.dmrenfaire.com/pics/500/restrooms2007_500x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.dmrenfaire.com/pics/500/restrooms2007_500x.jpg" height="154" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Privies - http://www.dmrenfaire.com/</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Everyone who has attended a Ren Faire knows that the toilets are referred to as <i>privies</i>. You may have guessed that <i>privy</i> is in some way related to <i>private</i>, and if so you guessed correctly. The <i>privy </i>was a <i>private</i> place. Both <i>private </i>and <i>privy </i>derive ultimately from Latin <i>privus</i> "individual". Something that was <i>private </i>was reserved for an individual or a select few, and a <i>privy </i>was a <i>private</i> area reserved for the members of a family or household to relieve themselves.<br />
<br />
What about <i>deprive</i> and <i>privation</i>, you may ask? These are also related, but they took a different route from Latin to English. While <i>private</i> and <i>privy</i> came from the past participle of <i>privare</i>, <i>privatus</i>, <i>deprive </i>and <i>privation </i>came directly from <i>privare</i>. <i>Privare</i> originally meant "isolate," but its meaning evolved from "isolate" (and you can see how that derived from the "individual" meaning of its parent, <i>privus</i>) to that which can come from isolation, deprivation, and that is whence <i>privation </i>and <i>deprive </i>came to English. Yet another <i>priv-</i> word, <i>privelege</i>, means, etymologically, "law regarding the individual," where the -<i>lege</i> element derives from Latin <i>lex</i> "law".<br />
<br />
You are now reasonably well-equipped to attend a Renaissance Faire. However, if you want the full lingo experience, <a href="http://www.museangel.net/speak.html" target="_blank">here is one site that delves more deeply into "Faire Speak".</a><br />
<br />
Recommended Link: With each new blog entry we will endeavor to provide you an interesting link to an article or a site related to etymology or language in general. This week we offer you <a href="http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/how-many-alternatives-can-there-be" target="_blank">Stan Carey's MacMillan Dictionary blog entry on the fallacious belief that etymology provides the true or most correct meaning of words</a>. We have fought this fallacy at TOWFI since TOWFI's inception many years ago. (If you follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/Etymomel" target="_blank">Twitter</a> you will have seen this link already, and we apologize for the repetition.)<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-88264277642828961632014-04-20T10:38:00.000-07:002014-05-29T15:12:08.387-07:00Miscellany<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.foodsubs.com/Photos/mesclunsalad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.foodsubs.com/Photos/mesclunsalad.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.33px; text-align: center;">Mesclun from http://www.foodsubs.com/Greensld.html</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The latest blog entry is a bit late because I was traveling to, attending, and returning from a funeral, and thereafter I was caring for an ill (now fully recovered) cat. My travels and care-giving experiences turned up quite a few words that piqued (not "peaked"!) my curiosity. Some of these words are connected, while others are not. This will, then, be an etymological mesclun salad. <i>Mesclun </i>is defined by the OED as "young leaves and shoots of a variety of wild plants, used to make a salad." The term has also come to refer to a salad of mixed young leaves that are not necessarily wild. <i>Mesclun </i>came to English from French, and it derives from Latin <i>mescere</i> "to mix." The ultimate source is Proto-Indo-European <i>meik-</i> "mix" which gave us words like <i>meddle</i>, <i>medley</i>, <i>mélange</i>, <i>miscellaneous </i>(and <i>miscellany</i>), <i>mix</i>, <i>mixture</i>, and even <i>mustang </i>and <i>promiscuous</i>.<br />
<br />
After the funeral, I wondered about the origins of funerary words. <i>Funeral </i>came to English via French from Latin <i>funus</i> "funeral, corpse" but beyond that very little is known about the word. However, some conjecture that it comes from the Proto-Indo-European root <i>dheu</i>- "to rise in a cloud" as do dust, vapor and smoke, among other things. The connection here would be cremation of the dead and the resulting rising smoke and ashes. That would make <i>funus </i>and <i>fumus </i>(Latin for "smoke") cognates.<br />
<br />
There were other rituals observed around the funeral. The evening before the funeral a gathering at the funeral home called "visitation" occurred. This appears to be the twenty-first century version of a <i>wake</i>. A wake was traditionally the time between death and burial when the family of the deceased sat with and watched over the body. This meaning of <i>wake </i>preserves an older sense of the word, which was "be watchful" and that further morphed into "guard." Thus, during a traditional wake, the body was watched and guarded until burial. Burial occurred much more quickly in earlier times, before undertakers mastered their art of preserving the body so that the time to burial could be extended. The English word <i>watch</i> comes from the same source a <i>wake</i>.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Pagami_creek_smoke_plume.jpeg/640px-Pagami_creek_smoke_plume.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Pagami_creek_smoke_plume.jpeg/640px-Pagami_creek_smoke_plume.jpeg" height="140" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.33px; text-align: center;">Smoke http://bit.ly/1mrUOSy</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In the case of the funeral I attended, the deceased was cremated some time after the visitation and funeral. <i>Cremate </i>was borrowed from Latin <i>cremare</i> "to burn." Calvert Watkins (see the TOWFI <a href="http://www.takeourword.com/bibliography.html" target="_blank">bibliography</a>) ties the Latin word to the Proto-Indo-European root <i>ker- </i>"heat, fire." This would mean that <i>hearth</i>, <i>carbon</i>, and <i>cremate</i> are all related (with metathesis of the e and r in <i>ker- </i>for <i>cremate</i>). Watkins also thinks that <i>ceramic </i>may derive from the same root.<br />
<br />
One of two cats in the TOWFI household has idiopathic tachycardia (<i>idiopathic </i>= Greek <i>idio- </i>"personal" and Greek -<i>pathic </i>"relating to a disease," and <i>idiopathic</i> has the meaning "disease arising by itself" (literally "from the person") though now it also means "of unknown etiology") (<i>tachycardia</i> = Greek <i>tachy- </i>"swift" and Greek -<i>cardia </i> "heart" and means "rapid heart rate"). This condition requires him to take medication (the beta blocker atenolol) twice a day. Thus, we had to board the cats at our veterinarian's office while we were away, because the cats are very shy and it would be impossible for our normal cat sitter to administer a pill, not to mention that it would be an inconvenience having to do so twice a day. Anyhow, I mention the boarding for two reasons: to add another etymological discussion to our mesclun salad, and to give a possible reason for the non-tachycardic cat's subsequent illness.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.cattychef.com/Images/Smorgasbord/smorgasbord.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.cattychef.com/Images/Smorgasbord/smorgasbord.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.33px; text-align: center;">Smorgasbord from http://bit.ly/1lqokso</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
First comes the etymology of <i>board</i> in this sense. The phrase was originally <i>room and board</i>, which meant one got a room and meals. The meal sense of <i>board </i>arose metaphorically from the "table" meaning of the word (this sense is also seen in the <i>bord</i> element of Swedish <i>smorgasbord</i>). Eventually the <i>room and</i> portion was dropped and <i>board</i> came to have the meaning of the entire phrase. It was then turned into a verb meaning "to provide [room and] board."<br />
<br />
The second reason I mentioned <i>board </i>above was to provide a segue into the next discussion. You see, our until-then healthy cat got sick a day after returning from boarding, so we wondered if he picked up the feline equivalent of a norovirus while housed in proximity to other cats. He was vomiting and <i>anorexic </i>(meaning he did not want to eat, from Greek elements meaning "lack of desire [for food]). He had vomited all night and when that continued until midday, the vet asked that he be brought in. Ultimately he was diagnosed with gastritis of unknown cause, and he has since fully recovered. However, while shuttling him back and forth to the vet's office and discussing his prolific vomiting with the doctor, I did wonder about words related to <i>vomit</i>. Luckily I was not eating during most of these mental musings.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blancoandbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/lindsay-lionel-the-adventures-of-chunder-loo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.blancoandbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/lindsay-lionel-the-adventures-of-chunder-loo.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.33px; text-align: center;">From http://bit.ly/1jpVaUD</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Vomit </i>and <i>emesis </i>are related, perhaps surprisingly, both deriving from the Proto-Indo-European root <i>wem- </i>"vomit." There is also an English word <i>wamble</i> "feel queasy" that derives from the same root but came to English via a Germanic source, while the others came via Latin and Greek, respectively. Then there is the word <i>barf</i>, which the OED considers to be chiefly American. No one is sure, but the prevailing thought is that the word is echoic. <i>Retch</i> goes all the way back to Old English. An alternative form is <i>reach.</i> It originally meant "spit, clear the throat." I must also include <i>chunder</i> in this discussion, of course. We dealt with it a while back in TOWFI. Here is an excerpt:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As for <i>chunder</i>, that's a great Aussie word, indeed. The OED has no idea about its etymology, but Eric Partridge suggests derivation from the English dialectical <i>chounter </i>"mutter, murmur, grumble", supposedly echoic in derivation. However, he mentions another etymologist's¹ proposed derivations: an abbreviation of <i>watch under</i> ("look out below"), a call that seasick sailors could have made to their mates below; or rhyming slang, from <i>Chunder Loo</i> meaning "spew," Chunder Loo of Akim Foo being a cartoon character in ads for Cobra boot polish, carried in the <i>Sydney Bulletin</i> starting in 1909. Michael Quinion notes that Barry Humphries (known today as Dame Edna) popularized the term <i>chunder </i>in his comic strip about Australians in London in <i>Private Eye</i> magazine. The strip was called <i>Barry McKenzie</i>.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
¹That etymologist is G.A. Wilkes, in his <i>A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms</i> of 1978.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
While we are on the subject, did you know that butyric acid is what gives vomit its characteristic smell? <i>Butyric</i> comes from Latin <i>butyrum </i>"butter" because butyric acid was first isolated from butter.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sciguru.com/sites/default/files/imagesb/geosmin-putrid-food.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.sciguru.com/sites/default/files/imagesb/geosmin-putrid-food.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.33px; text-align: center;">Image from http://bit.ly/1rbjtsp (interesting article)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Now that we have broached the subject of chemicals that cause distinctive smells, how about <i>geosmin</i>? I learned recently that this is the chemical that gives beets their "earthy" taste. It is also a component of the familiar smell of rain after a dry spell, or of freshly disturbed soil. <i>Geosmin</i> means, etymologically, "earth smell," formed from the Greek elements <i>geo-</i> "earth" and <i>-osmo</i> "smell." This chemical is released when bacteria of the genus Streptomyces die. These bacteria are found in soil and decaying vegetation. If geosmin is only a component of the smell that occurs when rain falls on dry ground, what is the smell itself? It is called <i>petrichor, </i>from Greek <i>petrus</i> "rock" and <i>ichor</i> "the ethereal fluid that flows in the veins of the gods." The word was coined and first published in 1964 by Australian mineralogists Isabel J. Bear and R.G. Thomas in the journal <i>Nature</i>. These scientists determined that the smell comes primarily from an oil produced by some plants in dry conditions. That oil is absorbed by surrounding rocks and clay and released by rain. (Here's a <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/storm-scents-smell-rain/" target="_blank">Scientific American article on the subject</a>, by the mellifluously named Daisy Yuhas.)<br />
<br />
Please do leave your comments, corrections, or suggestions below.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-23257997107009424642014-03-23T19:03:00.000-07:002014-03-24T07:00:36.291-07:00Cobbling Together Some Etymologies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://search.chow.com/thumbnail/480/0/www.chowstatic.com/assets/2009/08/11061_cobb_salad_600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://search.chow.com/thumbnail/480/0/www.chowstatic.com/assets/2009/08/11061_cobb_salad_600.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cobb Salad: http://bit.ly/1jjy9al </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Cobb salad. I love a good Cobb salad. The salad itself is relatively easy to put together — ham, eggs, tomatoes, avocado, chicken, Roquefort cheese, and greens. It's the dressing that matters most to me, and I found <a href="http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cobb-salad-recipe0.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">a recipe I like</a>. While searching through recipes on-line, I also found <a href="http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Cobb-Salad-1000080529" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Saveur's version</a>, and it explained why the salad is so named. It is named after its inventor, Robert H. Cobb, part-owner of the famous Brown Derby restaurants in Los Angeles. He came up with the dish in 1937 — it is said that he threw together what he could find in the kitchen for a late night dish, and a menu mainstay was born. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Derby" target="_blank">Wikipedia gives even more detail</a> on this, though a source is not cited:
<br />
<blockquote>
The Hollywood Brown Derby is the purported birthplace of the Cobb Salad, which was said to have been hastily arranged from leftovers by owner Bob Cobb for showman and theater owner Sid Grauman. It was chopped fine because Grauman had just had dental work done, and couldn't chew well.</blockquote>
<div>
That is an entertaining, if possibly apocryphal, bit of information on the origin of the Cobb salad.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
On researching the Brown Derby, I learned that there were eventually four Brown Derby restaurants in L.A.:<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.oldlarestaurants.com/wp-content/uploads/brownderbywilshire-500x316.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.oldlarestaurants.com/wp-content/uploads/brownderbywilshire-500x316.jpg" height="201" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brown Derby: http://bit.ly/1iREOG2</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Wilshire Boulevard (the original, opened in 1926, and shaped like a derby hat), Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Los Feliz. These restaurants figured prominently in Hollywood of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Stars flocked there to eat, and star-watchers flocked there to see them. Sadly, the restaurants had all closed by the 1980s.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
After researching the salad name, I began to wonder about other <i>cobb- </i>and <i>cob-</i>related words. There are several. First is the surname <i>Cobb</i>, which is thought to have come from the Middle English nickname or personal name <i>Cobbe/Cobba</i>, related to Old Norse <i>Kobbi</i>. All of these are thought to derive from a word that meant "lump" — <i>lump</i> in this sense referred to a large (round) man. This was curious, but interesting. However, it got more interesting when I looked up <i>cob</i>. I knew this word to refer to horses, male swans, and to (sweet) corn, but the first sense in the OED is "a great man, big man, leading man" (from as early as 1420). What could horses, swans, and corn have to do with big men or leaders?<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/WelshPonySectionD.jpg/220px-WelshPonySectionD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/WelshPonySectionD.jpg/220px-WelshPonySectionD.jpg" height="196" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Welsh cob: http://bit.ly/1gqO4Sa</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Horses called <i>cobs</i> are stout, short-legged ponies. A <i>cob</i> is also a male swan. Further, a <i>cob </i>of corn is the seed head of the corn plant. Two different senses are coming through here: a short, stout horse could be thought of as <u>round</u>, or <u>lump</u>-shaped. On the other hand, a male swan is the <u>head</u> swan, and a cob of corn is the seed <u>head</u>. Both of these senses can be connected with the body part known as the head. It is often round (certainly so in humans) and it is, rather obviously, a head, and the figurative <u>leader </u>of the body. The OED doesn't like to make this connection between the two senses of <i>cob</i> ("round" and "leader"), but John Ayto does (in his <i>Dictionary of Word Origins</i>, 1990). It is indeed an attractive suggestion, for an obsolete English word for "top of the head" is <i>cop. </i>This appears to have mutated into <i>cob</i> in the word <i>cobweb</i>, so couldn't it have mutated into some of the other <i>cob</i> words? <i>Cop </i>is an old word for "spider," being short for <i>attercop</i>, which derives from Old English <i>ator</i> "poison" and <i>coppe</i> "head." Ayto goes on to suggest that <i>cop/coppe</i> (and thus <i>cob</i>) could very well be related to Latin <i>caput </i>"head." Other English words that derive from the Latin are <i>cap </i>(head covering) and <i>cape </i>(with the sense "hood," a type of head covering).<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
There are several other meanings of <i>cob</i> that include the round sense (some of these are dialectic): the stone of a fruit; a testicle; a small stack of hay; a knot of hair; a lump of coal; an apple dumpling. Then there is <i>cobblestone</i>, referring to the rounded shape of the stones. <i>Cobble</i> in that sense is a diminutive form of <i>cob</i>. The head sense is found in an obsolete meaning of <i>cob</i>: "the head of a (red) herring."<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBPeCxdrZ8QUqC3ubgK09E2g1LpDfGvQv6GORocuvs3A9d_RDEUEgRK_Xd3hTu6oQ45Ew88NiachxEORmC8YnerDN0EXnPuQPlxnQKLI4C2HuL_oLwml4b4rrpArsLSVwDpvkOfJdbLio/s640/Cherry-Cobbler-1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBPeCxdrZ8QUqC3ubgK09E2g1LpDfGvQv6GORocuvs3A9d_RDEUEgRK_Xd3hTu6oQ45Ew88NiachxEORmC8YnerDN0EXnPuQPlxnQKLI4C2HuL_oLwml4b4rrpArsLSVwDpvkOfJdbLio/s640/Cherry-Cobbler-1.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cobbler: http://bit.ly/OLn5oI</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Now, what about the other obvious <i>cob/cobb</i> words: <i>cobbler </i>(person) and <i>cobbler </i>(dessert)? The dessert meaning is chiefly American and dates from around 1859 in the written record. The OED does not suggest an etymology, but Robert K. Barnhart, in his <i>Dictionary of Etymology </i>(1995), suggests a connection with <i>cobeler</i>, "a wooden bowl or dish." He dates that word to 1385, but the OED does not have it (though the OED, and the on-line Middle English Dictionary, to which the OED on-line links, have <i>cobeler </i>as an early form of <i>cobbler </i>"shoe mender"). Others have suggested the dessert is so named because it consists of fruit baked with lumps of dough placed on top, taking us back to the "round" or "lump" senses. As for the person called a <i>cobbler</i>, or a shoe mender, no one seems to know its origin (it dates from about 1362). <i>Cobble</i> "to mend roughly" or "to put together roughly" is a back formation from <i>cobbler</i> "shoe mender" and dates from around 1496.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
How about the UK expression <i>cobblers</i> for "nonsense"? That is apparently from rhyming slang: <i>cobbler's awls</i> = "balls" (testicles) or "rubbish." As I've <a href="http://www.twitter.com/Etymomel" target="_blank">tweeted</a> before, Americans are not very familiar with rhyming slang, but we do use a bit. Here's that tweet: </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Americans do use rhyming slang:raspberry (raspberry tart=fart) & dukes ([put up your] dukes=hands (Duke of York=fork (fork=slang for hand))).</blockquote>
<div>
The shorthand and somewhat cramped style of the above quotation were employed to keep the length at 140 characters or fewer, the cardinal rule of Twitter.</div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
There are other words that start with <i>cob-</i>. What about <i>cobalt</i>? It is not related to those above. It, instead, comes from German <i>Kobold</i> "goblin". Early German miners named it thus because the mineral occurred with arsenic and sulfur, which often made the miners ill. Further, as an impurity, it lessened the value of the silver ore being mined. The miners attributed cobalt's presence to mischievous goblins. Several etymologies of the German word have been suggested: that it derives from <i>kuba-walda</i> or "ruler of the house"; that it comes from <i>kofewalt</i> "a spirit controlling one room"; and that it comes from German elements meaning "spirit of the pigsty." German supernatural creatures appear to have been quite specialized!<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/Indiancobra.jpg/240px-Indiancobra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/Indiancobra.jpg/240px-Indiancobra.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A cobra: http://bit.ly/1iRH7ch</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There is another <i>cob-</i> word that I did not think of immediately, and when I did, I felt sure it wasn't related to the words with etymological senses of "head" and "round." <i>Cobras </i>are, after all, snakes that are not native to English-speaking regions (or even regions where Latinate languages were native), and surely, I thought, their name is derived from an indigenous African or Asian term. However, that is where I erred. The name <i>cobra </i>is short for Portuguese <i>cobra de capello</i> "snake with a little hood," referring, of course, to the cobra's ability to enlarge the appearance of its head by expanding its hood. <i>Cobra </i>here derives from Latin <i>colubra </i>"snake."<i> </i>While it is not related to the above <i>cob-</i> words, it is Indo-European in origin, like the other <i>cob-</i> words. It dates from 1817.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-80642075723800049412014-03-02T14:26:00.001-08:002014-03-02T19:45:09.685-08:00T is for Texas, TOWFI and TwitterWe had some relatively wild weather in northern California this week. Some of you may recall that I have a B.S. in meteorology (weather, not meteors. Greeek <i>meteoron </i>meant "something high or lofty" and came to mean "phenomena in the sky or heavens"<i>)</i>, and I grew up with crazy weather in Texas. When I moved to California, little did I know how much I would miss a good thunderstorm. So when I saw an interesting cloud formation outside my office window last week, I snapped a photograph and promptly posted it to my local National Weather Service's Facebook page. The cloud formation in question was <i>mammatus</i>. If you follow <a href="http://www.twitter.com/Etymomel" target="_blank">TOWFI on Twitter</a> (where I tweet links to language-related articles of interest to TOWFI readers, and I also provide brief etymologies), you may have seen the mammatus photograph when I tweeted it to <a href="http://www.weather.com/tv/tvshows/jim-cantore" target="_blank">Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel</a>, followed by a tweet (to TOWFI followers) explaining the etymology of <i>mammatus</i>. I'll speak a bit more about <i>mammatus</i> later.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijndDlTZchE7ctFuy90dND9wRPt1GtVz4UdGW_vwSBe_AWPaVXAlJfcOPZ2xX7pkCStW7y2cpBJKpcRU_mspPMGHJuv2N0-UTPqkzN9kWpC8CjYFzKsIF7QYnZYOPvZ1wLJghhvRMbcLBg/s1600/mammatus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijndDlTZchE7ctFuy90dND9wRPt1GtVz4UdGW_vwSBe_AWPaVXAlJfcOPZ2xX7pkCStW7y2cpBJKpcRU_mspPMGHJuv2N0-UTPqkzN9kWpC8CjYFzKsIF7QYnZYOPvZ1wLJghhvRMbcLBg/s1600/mammatus.jpg" height="363" width="400" /></a>However, while my tweet referenced <i>udders</i>, the National Weather Service, on their Facebook page, responded to my post to them with the following:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The "utter" looking clouds ... appear to be mammatus from this picture. The overall weather pattern and atmospheric stability would support this type of cloud today. Thanks for sharing.</blockquote>
The word in quotation marks stands out. Of course the writer meant <i>udder</i>. How could such a mistake be made? <i>Utter </i>and <i>udder</i> are two different words with very different meanings. British English speakers must be particularly puzzled by this. The key here is pronunciation.<br />
<br />
In the U.S., we are what those of us here at TOWFI like to call <i>non-tauic</i> (this is not a technical term; it's just one we made up based on an existing technical term). To explain this, we must start with the term <i>non-rhotic</i> (this is, in fact, a technical term and not one that we made up). Most British English speakers are non-rhotic, that is, they do not pronounce <i>r</i> if it is followed by a consonant. To go with that, they have the <i>linking r</i>, where the <i>r</i> <u>is</u> pronounced if it is followed by a vowel (in the word <i>roaring</i>, British English speakers pronounce both <i>r</i>'s, and in "far and away" the<i> r</i> in <i>far </i>is usually pronounced) . In fact, many British English speakers also insert an <i>r</i> between vowels where one doesn't exist, and that is called the <i>intrusive r</i>. An extreme example of this, for Americans, occurs with the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000196/" target="_blank">Mike Myers</a> character Simon, from <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072562/" target="_blank">Saturday Night Live</a></i>. This character is a child who likes "to do drawRings" (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cThHtnvPVis" target="_blank">see the character on YouTube</a>). The<i> r</i> is inserted between <i>draw</i> and -<i>ings</i>. Canadian Mike Myers' parents were both from Liverpool, England, and this may explain his fascination with accents of the British Isles (he also did a Scottish accent occasionally on SNL; his voice for the animated character Shrek was done in a Scottish accent, as well). A less extreme example of the intrusive r would be a British English speaker calling someone named <i>Amanda </i>"AmandaR."<br />
<br />
That's all well and good, eh? What about <i>utter</i> and <i>udder? </i>In America we are <i>non-tauic</i>, in that we often do not pronounce our <i>t</i>'s as <i>t</i>'s. We sometimes pronounce a <i>t</i> within a word as a <i>d</i>, or we don't pronounce it all and substitute it with a <i>glottal stop</i>. <i>Mountain </i>is a good example of a word where we substitute a glottal stop. What is a glottal stop? An example of a glottal stop is the sound made when we say "uh-oh." The dash can be said to represent the glottal stop. Many Americans say "mao-un" (or "mao-in") where the dash again represents the glottal stop. <i>Utter</i>, on the utter hand (sorry), is a case where the <i>t</i> is pronounced as a <i>d</i>. This is so common that it leads to some misspellings, such as in the case of the NWS Facebook post. The poster was apparently more familiar with the spelling of the word <i>utter</i> than that of the word <i>udder</i>, two different words that are pronounced exactly the same by many in the U.S. Others make the same mistake: perform a Google image search for <i>utter</i> and you will get a few images of cows (along with many images of otters!).<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Matthew_McConaughey_2011.jpg/220px-Matthew_McConaughey_2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Matthew_McConaughey_2011.jpg/220px-Matthew_McConaughey_2011.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Matthew McConaughey</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A brief aside regarding rhotacism: I'd like to point out that Texans are rhotic, that is, Texans pronounce their <i>r</i>'s. In fact, they sometimes insert <i>r</i>'s where they don't belong (my grandmother used to say "tomater" for <i>tomato </i>and "pillar" for <i>pillow</i>, and she lived her entire life in Texas). Actors trying to speak with a Texas accent very often decide to go non-rhotic. This, unfortunately, is inaccurate. There are a few dialects in the deep South of the U.S. that are non-rhotic (non-rhotic dialects also exist in New England). The Texas dialects are not among them (and Texas is not considered to be in the deep South). Texans pronounce their r's with gusto. Just listen to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000190/" target="_blank">Matthew McConaughey</a> in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2356777/" target="_blank"><i>True Detective</i></a> (a superb series on HBO in the U.S. and on Sky Atlantic in the U.K. - <a href="http://huff.to/1gLz2mn" target="_blank">here's an interesting article on it</a>). That is a real Texas accent (he is, after all, from Texas and appears to be quite proud of it). There is apparently now an app for teaching actors how to properly speak with specific American accents. It is called <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/the-real-accent-app/id741248921?mt=8" target="_blank">The Real Accent App: USA</a>. The app includes a Dallas accent, and I can't wait to hear it: I'm a Dallas native!<br />
<br />
Now, back to <i>mammatus</i>. One of the tweets in the screen shot above tells you that this cloud formation is so named because of the pendulous shape of the cloud, resembling hanging teats or udders. <a href="http://www.takeourword.com/TOW187/page1.html" target="_blank">You can read a previous TOWFI discussion of <i>mamma-related</i> words here.</a> Interestingly, back in Texas, I most often saw mammatus clouds in association with severe weather, which sometimes included tornadoes. Here in California, tornadoes are rare (though <a href="http://www.news10.net/story/weather/2014/03/01/the-recent-history-of-tornadoes-in-california/5924991/" target="_blank">they do occur</a>), but mammatus does turn up here from time to time, without any accompanying severe weather. However, it is an indicator of some pretty good atmospheric instability, a requirement for (but not always a producer of) severe weather. (<a href="http://www.erh.noaa.gov/box/sevwxdef.html" target="_blank">Here are some terms and definitions related to severe weather, from the National Weather Service.</a>)<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Cow_udders02.jpg/250px-Cow_udders02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Cow_udders02.jpg/250px-Cow_udders02.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An udder</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Since this is ultimately an etymology blog, we really should look at <i>udder</i> and <i>utter</i>. <i>Udder</i> is an old word, turning up in Old English and Old Saxon, as well as several other Germanic languages. In Latin it was <i>uber</i>, and Greek and Sanskrit had cognates. The Latin form also gave us <i>exuberant </i>from the Latin adjective <i>uberus</i> meaning "fertile". The sense went from "[lactating] teats" to "fertile" to "abundant or overflowing," and then "abundant or overflowing in emotion." (Latin <i>uber</i> should not be confused with German <i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ü</span></span>ber </i>"over.")<br />
<br />
<i>Utter </i>means, etymologically, "outer" and is, not surprisingly, cognate with <i>outer</i>. <i>Utmost </i>is another relative. <i>Utter</i> and <i>utmost</i> have the sense of "outermost," and the sense shifted to "going to the most outer (or utmost) point; extreme" (from the OED). Thus, an "utter fool" is the most extreme of fools. Calvert Watkins suggests that the Indo-European root here is <i>ud- </i>"up, out", which also gave us <i>ersatz</i> (via Old High German) "substitute or imitation," the sense being of putting something "out" and replacing it with something else.<br />
<br />
And with that, I am utterly exhausted and will now retire to catch up on <i>True Detective</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-43475925276724473392014-02-24T19:49:00.000-08:002014-02-25T10:18:14.525-08:00Origins of Some Words We Don't Use Much Any LongerOjibwa at <i>Daily Kos</i> wrote an article this week entitled, "<a href="http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1279580" target="_blank">Origins of English: Some Obsolete Words</a>." Strangely, the author states in the article, "I have listed only the meaning of the word, not its etymology nor the date of its last recorded use." I'm not exactly sure how the article, then, qualifies as "Origins of English," but I'll help get it there by providing the derivations of some of the more interesting examples it contains.<br />
<br />
Several of the words provided in the article are extremely rare, one of them appearing only twice in the written record, and by the same author (per the OED). However, some of the examples were at one time fairly well-known words which have simply crept into obsolescence. Still others may not have been used a great deal, but their derivations are interesting, nonetheless.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.treesisters.org/uploads/images/soil/7%20TreeRoots%20-%20omnni.com.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://www.treesisters.org/uploads/images/soil/7%20TreeRoots%20-%20omnni.com.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roots from <a href="https://www.treesisters.org/news/62/81/A-Soil-Story">https://www.treesisters.org/news/62/81/A-Soil-Story</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Take <i>radicate</i>. The earliest example of this word is adjectival, from around the first quarter of the 15th century, and it had already developed a figurative sense: "a quality or attribute that is deeply rooted." The verb form turns up about a century later, first recorded in 1531. It also had a figurative meaning. Today the verb is considered obsolete, while the adjective survives in botanical use, meaning "growing from a root (versus a rhizome)," and as such has come full circle back to its original meaning. It derives from Latin <i>radix</i> "root." The verb <i>eradicate</i> originally meant "pull up by the roots" (<i>e </i>means "out" in Latin) and is just a little bit younger than its <i>radicate </i>relatives, first turning up in 1564. Today <i>eradicate </i>has a broader sense of "to remove completely."<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.theseashore.org.uk/theseashore/Resources%20for%20seashoreweb/Images%20for%20New%20Pages/Bladderwrack%20floating.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.theseashore.org.uk/theseashore/Resources%20for%20seashoreweb/Images%20for%20New%20Pages/Bladderwrack%20floating.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bladderwrack from <a href="http://bit.ly/1bHvO5K">http://bit.ly/1bHvO5K</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Fucus</i> "coloring or make-up to beautify the skin" derives from Latin <i>fucus</i> "lichen." The Romans used a lichen (among other things) to create a red cosmetic that was applied as a rouge to the cheeks. The word <i>fucus </i>thus came to refer to the cosmetic itself, and that usage was picked up by English in the 17th century to refer to face make-up. Indeed the earliest reference in the OED, from 1607, is to a cosmetic to cover up freckles. The word doesn't seem to have survived in this sense much past the middle of the 18th century. However, it does survive today as the name of a genus of seaweed. One of these seaweeds, <i>Fucus vesiculosus</i>, also known as <i>bladderwrack</i>, was the first source of iodine (early 19th century) and was used to treat thyroid conditions. The <i>bladder-</i> element refers to the air-filled bladders on the fronds, while the <i>-wrack</i> element is not as easily explained - there are at least two different derivations of words spelled <i>w-r-a-c-k</i>. The OED doesn't identify which of these <i>wracks</i> is part of <i>bladderwrack</i>. However, a long-time source of excellent etymological information for us here at TOWFI, Michael Quinion, does touch upon it. <a href="http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-wra1.htm" target="_blank">He tells us</a> that <i>wrack </i>is used to refer to several seaweeds, and it derives from Old English <i>wrecan </i>"to drive." The sense here is "driven by the tide."<br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.wildfibres.co.uk/assets/images/autogen/a_silk0234_7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.wildfibres.co.uk/assets/images/autogen/a_silk0234_7.jpg" height="228" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Silk from <a href="http://www.wildfibres.co.uk/html/silk.html">http://www.wildfibres.co.uk/html/silk.html</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Bombycinous</i> "made of silk" does not appear to have been widely used in English. The OED gives only four examples of it, all occurring between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. <i>Silk </i>is a much older word, and it is also much shorter! That may explain why <i>bombycinous </i>never caught on. It derives ultimately from Greek <i>bombus</i> "silk worm." The Greeks are thought to have borrowed the word from an oriental language. And though <i>bombycinous </i>may look quite ludicrous to us, it is, in fact, related to <i>bombastic</i>. How could this be? Well, <i>bombast </i>is a variant of <i>bombace </i>"cotton," deriving, via French, from Latin <i>bombax </i>"cotton," which in turn derives from Latin <i>bombyx </i>"silk." One word for clothing fiber came to be applied to another, perhaps visually similar fiber. So how did a word meaning "cotton" come to mean "inflated" and then, of language, "pompous"? <i>Bombace </i>"cotton" evolved into "cotton wool used as stuffing for clothes" and then the figurative senses of "stuffed," "over-padded" and "inflated" arose.<br />
<i></i><br />
<i></i>
<i>Silk</i>, by the way, is a word that came from the Orient. The Germanic languages that have similar forms of this word appear to have gotten them from one of the Slavic languages of the Baltic Sea region. The Slavic and Germanic forms all share the letter l. However, the Latin and Greek forms have an r instead of an l (Latin for silk is <i>sericum</i>), and that form gave rise to the name that the Greeks bestowed upon the first silk traders - <i>Seres</i>. It is thought that the difference between the l-form and the r-form is the result of two slightly different source words.<br />
<br />
Now, after all that, I hope you agree that we have helped justify the title of the article that inspired this blog entry!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-18660796644588995712014-02-10T18:42:00.002-08:002014-02-10T18:46:04.385-08:00That's So Cheesy! If I read the word <i>cheesy </i>quickly, it looks like <i>chessy </i>to me<i>,</i> though <i>chessy</i> isn't a word (but <a href="http://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/not-a-word-prolly-aint-an-argument-anyways/" target="_blank">see this</a> about words that supposedly aren't words). I usually want to spell <i>cheesy</i> with an <i>e</i> before the <i>y </i>(it is an accepted spelling, especially if you intend the "inferior, cheap" meaning), but I refrained here so that I had a reason to include the link to words that supposedly aren't words. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.norbitoncheese.co.uk/Images/stock/Red%20Leicester.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.norbitoncheese.co.uk/Images/stock/Red%20Leicester.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Leicester "Sparkenhoe" http://bit.ly/1lsg1bD</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Enough with the cheesiness. I bought some Red Leicester cheese today. One doesn't see it very often here in the States, so it was a pleasant surprise. It got me thinking about cheese names. Most traditional cheese names refer to the area or region where each was initially produced. Note that I say <i>initially</i>, because today cheeses that originated in specific places are often made worldwide, and some of them retain the original name. An example is <i>Cheddar</i>. This cheese originated near the village of Cheddar in the county of Somerset, in the southwest of England. There are written records of it dating back 800 years! Apparently there are caves near Cheddar that offer the perfect environment for ageing cheese. At one time Cheddar cheese had to be made within 30 miles of Wells Cathedral, about seven miles from Cheddar, in order to be called <i>Cheddar</i>. Today there is an EU Protected Designation of Origin that requires "West Country Farmhouse Cheddar" to be made on a farm in one of the four counties in the far southwest of England: Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, or Somerset. It must also be made using traditional techniques specific to Cheddar cheese. One can these days find such cheeses here in the States (I particularly like <a href="http://www.montgomerycheese.co.uk/" target="_blank">Montgomery Cheddar</a>), offering a welcome respite from most mass produced American Cheddars, which may just lose their appeal once you try a true English Cheddar.<br />
<br />
By the way, the place name <i>Cheddar</i> is thought to come from Old English <i>ceodor</i> "ravine," referring to<br />
the eponymous gorge near the village, Cheddar Gorge. Thus, Cheddar Gorge is one of those names that repeats itself, etymologically, for it means "gorge gorge". Such place names are characterized as being tautological, and there is even a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names" target="_blank">list of tautological place names available from Wikipedia</a>. (Cheddar Gorge is currently absent from the list - feel free to add it!)<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.montgomerycheese.co.uk/popups/image-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.montgomerycheese.co.uk/popups/image-1.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Montgomery Cheddar - http://bit.ly/1nr2vV2</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A note on capitalizing (or not) cheese names: the standard seems to be that if the name refers to a geographical name that is normally capitalized, the cheese name should also be capitalized. Thus, even though in American writing <i>cheddar</i> is often not capitalized, I am capitalizing it here.<br />
<br />
Let's get back to that Red Leicester. (I was torn between capitalizing or not capitalizing <i>red</i> here. Since <i>Leicester</i> is capitalized as it is a place name, I am capitalizing <i>red</i>, as well.). It used to be known as Leicestershire cheese. However, once people noticed that high-quality cheeses made with rich summer milk with added cream tended to be orange in color, due to the high carotene content from the grass (Double Gloucester cheese is an example), that color became desirable in cheese. When annatto coloring became available in the 15th century, makers of Leicestershire cheese began adding annatto to their cheese to achieve that orange shade without having to use as much of the rich milk and cream (the Day-Glo orange color of many American Cheddars is a vestige of that). By the mid-18th century, the production of this cheese became regulated, and it came to be known as Leicester cheese. During World War II rationing, cheese production was standardized across the country and colors were no longer added, so cheese made in the Leicester area was known as White Leicester. Once the cheese industry recovered from the war, and annatto was again added to Leicester cheese, it came to be known as Red Leicester to distinguish it from the run-of-the-mill White Leicester.<br />
<br />
<i>Leicester </i>contains the familiar <i>-cester</i> element which derives from Old English <i>ceaster</i> and means, etymologically, "walled town". <i>Lei</i>- comes ultimately, per the <i>Oxford Names Companion</i>, from <i>Ligore</i>, which is thought to refer to a specific tribe or group of people, but beyond that the word's origin is not known. While we're at it, how about <i>annatto</i>? The dye comes from the pulp that surrounds the seeds of the achiote tree, <i>Bixa orellana</i>. No one seems to know where the word <i>annatto</i> comes from, though the OED guesses that it is from a native Central American language, as the plant is indigenous to that region.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://drinks.seriouseats.com/images/20110425_149126_perry-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://drinks.seriouseats.com/images/20110425_149126_perry-2.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Read more about perry: http://bit.ly/1od7H1S</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
How about a couple of unusual or interesting cheeses? One of my favorite cheese names is <i>stinking bishop</i>. It is so named because its rind is washed in perry (fermented pear juice) made from the juice of the stinking bishop pear. Wikipedia says that the pear did not have a bad odor, but it was named after its breeder, Mr. Bishop, and Mr. Bishop was apparently not the most pleasant person, hence "stinking." This cheese, made by only one producer, gained fame after it was mentioned in the animated film <i>Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. </i> Now for unusual: <i>pule</i> cheese. This is purportedly cheese made from Balkan donkey's milk. This makes it the most expensive cheese in the world. It hails from Serbia, where <i>pule</i> is Serbian for "foal".<br />
<br />
Even though the word <i>perry</i> used above is not a cheese name, it is an interesting word, nonetheless. It is not heard much in the U.S. in the sense "pear cider" - we often say "pear cider." However, it is a relatively old word, dating back to Middle English (14th century) and derives ultimately from Latin <i>pirum</i> "pear". Now, how about a glass of perry and some nice Blue Stilton? (<i>Stilton</i> is named after the town in Cambridgeshire in which it was first sold.) Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-45077385356198361492014-01-21T18:37:00.002-08:002014-01-21T19:05:01.674-08:00A Walk Along the Guadalupe River<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://silichip.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/GuadalupeSystem.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://silichip.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/GuadalupeSystem.png" height="400" width="385" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Map of Guadalupe River System from silichip.org</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
San Jose, California is fairly progressive in preserving the riparian areas around the local creeks and rivers. The Guadalupe River is a good example. It flows from the north end of Lake Almaden in South San Jose and into the San Francisco Bay at the Alviso slough. Much of the river's length is left in its semi-wild state, providing habitat to a diverse array of animals, including opossums, raccoons, otters, beavers and trout, and it is followed by a paved, two-way trail for bicycles, walkers and runners (as well as a skateboard here and there, and even a wiggle board or two). We took a 4.5 mile stroll along the Guadalupe, and we returned with much fodder for this blog.<br />
<br />
The most obvious etymology to start with here is that of <i>riparian</i>. <i>Ripa</i> is classical Latin for "river bank" and is cognate with English <i>river.</i> So <i>riparian</i> is "of or related to the river bank." There is also the cognate <i>riverine</i>. <i>Riparian</i> dates from only 1810 in the written record, and <i>riverine</i> came a bit later. We find <i>riverain</i>, too, which came the French route to English - it was originally a person who lived on the banks of a river. It's the oldest of this group (not including <i>river</i>) and dates to the late 17th century in French.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://rhorii.com/GRPG/GRT-PICT1181.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://rhorii.com/GRPG/GRT-PICT1181.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Guadalupe River riparian area in San Jose from rhorii.org</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Another interesting word related to our walk is <i>slough</i>. In the U.S. we pronounce it "slew" (and sometimes spell it that way) but in the U.K. it is, of course, pronounced "slau". The meanings are slightly different between the U.S. and U.K., as well. In the U.S. a <i>slough </i>is a marshy or reedy pool, pond, small lake, backwater or inlet, or a seasonally dry channel, while in the U.K. it is soft or muddy ground, or a mire. However, the basic idea of "wet" runs through both meanings. It was <i>slóhin</i> Old English, but beyond that it's a bit of a mystery. The OED suggests that it may be related to <i>slonk</i>, which has cognates in other Germanic languages and means "a wet hollow in the road or ground." There is, of course, the town of Slough in England, made unhappily infamous by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slough_(poem)" target="_blank">Betjeman's notorious poem</a>. It was so named as it was located in a miry area. In 1195 it was <i>Slo</i>.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.openspacetrust.org/images/alviso_slough.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.openspacetrust.org/images/alviso_slough.jpg" height="237" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From openspacetrust.org</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We saw some wildlife on the walk, including many Canada geese. Note that some speakers hypercorrect that to <i>Canadian</i>, but the proper term is <i>Canada geese</i>. We also saw squirrels. These busy fellows are apparently named for their plume-like tails, for their name derives ultimately from Greek words that mean "shade tail". The word came to English from Anglo-Norman <i>esquirel (</i><i>écureuil </i>in modern French)<i>. </i>There are cognates in Provençal and Spanish, almost guaranteeing a Latin ancestor, and indeed it does derive from Latin <i>(e)scurellus</i>, the diminutive form of <i>scurius</i>, a metathetic form of <i>sciurus</i>, formed from Greek <i>skiouros</i> (σκίουρος), a compound of <i>skia</i> and <i>oura</i>, "shade" and "tail," respectively (for the latter, cf. <i>ouroboros</i>). In <i>squirrel </i>we find yet another word that separates U.S. speakers from those in the U.K.: in the U.S. it is pronounced "skwerl" (one syllable) while in the U.K. it is "SQUI-rull"(two syllables).<br />
<br />
We close where we began - with the Guadalupe River. <i>Guadalupe </i>is a curious word, and it is also<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://quintessentialruminations.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/squirrel1.jpg?w=300&h=234" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://quintessentialruminations.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/squirrel1.jpg?w=300&h=234" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Squirrel, from quintessentialruminations.wordpress.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
macaronic, which may add to its curiousness - it is derived from two words from different languages. The <i>guada</i> element is from Arabic <i>guadi </i>(we know it today as <i>wadi</i>; in Spanish, the <i>g</i> is silent) - "dry river bed." The second element is from Latin <i>lupus</i> "wolf." The combination means "wolf river bed". Anyone who lives in coyote country is probably familiar with coyotes (wolf-like animals) yipping as they run up and down dry river beds - these beds make excellent animal roadways, and perhaps this is the sense originally conveyed by <i>Guadalupe</i>. The word is a place name in Spain, and the Spanish place name is likely the source of the name <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe" target="_blank">Our Lady of Guadalupe</a> (<i>Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe</i>) of Mexico (though some theorize the name in Mexico came from an Indian word). The river in San Jose was named <i>Rio de <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Our Lady of Guadalupe">Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe</a></i> by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Bautista_de_Anza" target="_blank">De Anza</a> expedition in 1776. Our Lady of Guadalupe was the party's patron saint. Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is also the source of the popular Mexican personal names <i>Guadalupe </i>and <i>Lupe</i>. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-82112487296694683542014-01-14T07:15:00.003-08:002014-01-14T21:15:05.169-08:00Words from the Road<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwUZIga4CxYXur_1rYaeOQzxS7txCfabAtD358rVdAStL-Vm9X3eALVUhVvrPEK32YNcnebvfMyMv5VDvJsNIoNW4N5s0iQeFgSPJId9yHFaIhceibv-uMm63e-QfJnXwok8u6a6MSNpqi/s1600/IMG_1592.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwUZIga4CxYXur_1rYaeOQzxS7txCfabAtD358rVdAStL-Vm9X3eALVUhVvrPEK32YNcnebvfMyMv5VDvJsNIoNW4N5s0iQeFgSPJId9yHFaIhceibv-uMm63e-QfJnXwok8u6a6MSNpqi/s1600/IMG_1592.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snowshoeing at Breckenridge, Colorado</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I just returned from a week of winter sport in Colorado, where there was a great deal more snow than there is in California (drought!). In fact, we almost got snowed in, as even more snow arrived in the form of a winter storm on our last day. We escaped just in time, with some harrowing moments of almost zero visibility and completely obscured roadways due to blowing snow.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.schweich.com/images/1440-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.schweich.com/images/1440-11.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo from <a href="http://www.schweich.com/imagehtml/1440-11.html">http://www.schweich.com/imagehtml/1440-11.html</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Yes, it was a road trip, because road trips afford so much discovery. For example, I had heard of the word <i>Zzyzx</i>, but I actually got to see the sign on Interstate 15 in San Bernardino County, California, that bears the name <i>Zzyzx Rd. </i> That road leads to the location of the original settlement of Zzyzx, founded in 1944. Wikipedia says that the settlement was founded by Curtis Howe Springer, and he called it the Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Spa. He made up the name Zzyzx, apparently so he would have the honor of having coined the last word in the English language, when taken in alphabetical order. The U.S. Board on Geographical Names made the name official in 1984.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/SanRafaelReefUT.jpg/800px-SanRafaelReefUT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/SanRafaelReefUT.jpg/800px-SanRafaelReefUT.jpg" height="209" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Rafael_Swell">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Rafael_Swell</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Another discovery was made as we drove through Utah. This is high desert country, with many geological features to observe. We passed one such feature, called the San Rafael Reef. It is an approximately 75-mile long outcrop of sandstone that has been weathered into some spectacular cliffs, domes, and canyons. When we saw the sign telling us that this was a reef, we at first assumed it was the fossilized remains of what had been a reef back when, up to 270 million years ago, the area was under a shallow sea. That was the only kind of <i>reef</i> with which we were familiar. However, some research revealed that in Utah, the word <i>reef</i> refers to "rocky cliffs which are a barrier to travel, like a coral reef" (from the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/care/naturescience/geology.htm" target="_blank">National Park Service web site on Capitol Reef National Park</a>). Interestingly, all dictionaries I checked, including the OED, define this sense of <i>reef</i> as something that occurs only in water. However, there is also a sense of <i>reef </i>that means "a lode or vein of gold-bearing quartz." This sense originated in Australia, but the OED provides an early citation that refers to mining in Montana, indicating that the mining usage appears to have made it to the U.S. It may be that the mining sense and the ocean sense (which contains an implied sense of blocking travel or making travel hazardous) were combined in the Utah usage.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0036/2852/files/Native_American_Woman_Weaving_Snowshoes.jpg?1285681268" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0036/2852/files/Native_American_Woman_Weaving_Snowshoes.jpg?1285681268" height="255" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="http://www.vintagewinter.com/products/antique-native-american-indian-snowshoes-2">http://www.vintagewinter.com/</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Let us return to a subject mentioned above (in one of the above photograph captions) - snowshoes. The snowshoes we are accustomed to seeing today, round or oblong and webbed, appear to have originated in North America, and the first instance of the term in English, according to the OED, dates from 1674 in the form <i>snow-shoos. </i>A quick check of the <a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/" target="_blank">Google Books Ngram Viewer</a> (a fabulous tool that allows you to search Google's full-text book database for words and phrases) shows that most instances of <i>snowshoe(s)</i> come from North American books, though Google finds nothing before 1713. Though the shapes varied quite a bit, all of the northern Indian tribes in North America used some sort of snowshoe.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.artisanalcheese.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fondue-pic-300x229.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://blog.artisanalcheese.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fondue-pic-300x229.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="http://blog.artisanalcheese.com/the-fondue-blog/329">http://blog.artisanalcheese.com/the-fondue-blog/329</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Finally, while in Colorado, we partook of a wonderful dish called <i>fondue </i>(it has been a favorite of mine for some time). It is a delightful way to warm up after a day in the snow. The word dates in English to only 1878, per the OED, but the Google Books Ngram Viewer finds it in a cookbook of 1808 <span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span class="fn" style="line-height: 18px;"><span dir="ltr">A new system of domestic cookery</span></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">:</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="subtitle" style="line-height: 18px;"><span dir="ltr">formed upon principles of economy, and adapted to the use of private families" by </span></span><span dir="ltr" style="line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;"><a class="secondary" href="http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Maria+Eliza+Ketelby+Rundell%22" style="line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;">Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell</span></a>). Wikipedia says that the term appears in 1699 in a cookbook out of Zurich, Switzerland. F<i>ondue</i> derives from French <i>fondre </i>"to melt," related to such English words as <i>foundry </i>and <i>fondant</i>. These ultimately go back to the Indo-European root <i>*ghud</i>, source also (per John Ayto) of <i>ingot</i>, another word with a "melt" sense. With that, we</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;"> have come full circle: from frozen water (snow) to melting. </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-8742239836206551652014-01-01T12:58:00.000-08:002014-01-02T21:18:57.501-08:00The Etymology of a Couple of Famous Surnames<br />
[Yes, <i>Take Our Word For It</i> is open for business again! More later about what's been happening and what's in store. For now, back to the fun stuff!]<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghskbLRxgzZelsMeoArQ_4cx-gewtvT6w6g0csbb7DqQX4xf3hFZ8ZoaOQQvuYoE7czHdwNt4AX-S3HHE-ORwjoeHAPbnoDFHnn5VvkqwOG_YciXy226jDkXV3yyUABMFTCH931ZHrF8F9/s1600/tumblr_mrog7t4VLl1sfk5eeo1_500.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghskbLRxgzZelsMeoArQ_4cx-gewtvT6w6g0csbb7DqQX4xf3hFZ8ZoaOQQvuYoE7czHdwNt4AX-S3HHE-ORwjoeHAPbnoDFHnn5VvkqwOG_YciXy226jDkXV3yyUABMFTCH931ZHrF8F9/s320/tumblr_mrog7t4VLl1sfk5eeo1_500.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://iadorehiddles.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Tom Hiddleston as himself</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Actors with some wonderfully Anglo-Saxon-sounding surnames are seizing headlines of late. There's the delightful <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1089991/" target="_blank">Tom Hiddleston</a>, who plays Loki (swoon!) in the Marvel movie universe, and is soon to be seen in <i>Only Lovers Left Alive</i> with Tilda Swinton (must see!). Then there's the enigmatic <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1212722/" target="_blank">Benedict Cumberbatch</a>, turning up everywhere from BBC's <i>Sherlock</i> (I'm addicted!) to providing the voice of Smaug in Peter Jackson's latest <i>Hobbit </i>installment (loved it!). So what's a <i>hiddle</i> and why is it in town, and how does one get a <i>batch</i> of <i>cumbers</i>, and would that be cumbersome?<br />
<br />
Surnames have origins similar to those of regular words. My maiden name is Jeanes, and while some think it is simply a form of <i>John</i>, there are others who assert that it actually denotes a person from Genoa, suggesting that the original Jeanes folk likely went to England as mercenaries for William the Conqueror. <i>Jeans </i>as in <i>blue jeans</i> has that same origin (fabric of Genoa). So what about Hiddleston and Cumberbatch?<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPJC8fo-ikyss-8Vv2G3CVGRPzKxmbrZxIuCGMe5ck-dby6cNbkRxBMt8cakpGarbmihdUOJ8rI30G_Pab0bDRVFWt8BKKPq1ELiGjRUHgof3WS5NrS2fI-z99ZCbWRmv_Ev7TzvqsFHB/s320/BenedictCumberbatch_1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://geektyrant.com/news/2011/5/23/benedict-cumberbatch-cast-in-the-hobbit.html" target="_blank">Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Hiddleston </i>is a form of <i>Huddleston</i>, which is ultimately a place name: "the settlement of (a man named) Hudel." <i>Hudel </i>is a diminutive form of the name <i>Hud(d)</i>, from which we also get <i>Hudson</i> (son of Hud(d)). So this must mean that Tom Hiddleston lived with Paul Newman!?!? (Derp!) The "settlement" meaning arises from the -<i>ton</i> affix. It was <i>tun</i> in Old English and meant "settlement or enclosure" (most settlements were enclosed by a wall or fence of some sort) and of course gives us the word <i>town</i>. This suggests that Tom's family came from Yorkshire or possibly even Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland (both locations are home to towns called Huddleston; the one in Yorkshire is the original). Any road... (for us Americans, that's Yorkshirespeak for "anyway..."), if your name is Hiddleson, it's possible that your family dropped the T, but it's also possible that your ancestor was the son of Hudel (making Hiddleson a patronymic).<br />
<br />
<i>Cumberbatch </i>is another place name, suggesting that Mr. C's family hails from Cheshire, where there was a stream of that name. The stream got its name from the personal name <i>Cumbra</i>, which ultimately means "Cumbrian" or Welsh and was a popular given name, and Old English <i>bæce</i> "stream" or "beck". Alternatively, the stream could have been named for the more general "stream of the Welshmen" (no potty jokes please!). Some people prefer to minimize any Welsh family heritage, but the Cumberbatches should be proud to be the owners of such a venerable old surname (after all, the Welsh have had professional poets since the Dark Ages and they have a <a href="http://www.eisteddfod.org.uk/english/faqs/" target="_blank">National Eisteddfod</a> - they can't be all bad!). But, of course, since <i>Cumbra</i> was apparently a popular name at the time, there may be no Welsh connection here at all.<br />
<br />
Do you have an unusual or perplexing surname? Let me know and I'll try to sort it out for you. Now for some fun involving both Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch: <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/catesish/this-tom-hiddleston-vs-benedict-cumberbatch-dance-off-is-eve" target="_blank">Dance Off</a>! There is also this <a href="http://benedictcumberbatchgenerator.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Benedict Cumberbatch Anagram Generator</a>!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-5672602603876028952009-10-31T17:34:00.000-07:002009-10-31T18:07:51.755-07:00Breaking the SilenceYes, we've been absent a long time. We apologize for that. We simply got too busy with our "day jobs" and didn't have enough time to pursue our love of etymology. And we've been suffering because of it!<br /><br />However, we want you to know that we are working on <a href="http://www.takeourword.com">Take Our Word For It</a> behind the scenes. Mike, the programmer in the family, is changing the design of the site. He's planning to seriously revamp it! We are also combing through all word requests submitted by readers over the last couple of years, looking for the best ones to address in <span style="font-style: italic;">Words to the Wise</span>. Further, we have been keeping notes over the last couple of years regarding good topics for <span style="font-style: italic;">Spotlight</span>. So we have been working on TOWFI - we simply haven't been able to show you the fruits of our work. And it will be a bit longer before we can do so.<br /><br />In the meantime, we wanted to mention a couple of examples of word confusion we came across recently. They both come from the "storm chaser" world - if you haven't noticed, there are quite a few storm chaser programs on television these days, on the National Geographic Channel, the Weather Channel, and the Discovery family of channels. One of the storm chasers (he's actually a scientist) mentioned having to drive through a "maelstORm". Sure, it's easy to see whence the confusion arises, especially when speaking of storms, but the word is actually <span style="font-style: italic;">maelstrom</span>. Edgar Allen Poe introduced the word to English from Norwegian in 1841. The <span style="font-style: italic;">strom</span> element in the word does not mean "storm" but instead means "current". With <span style="font-style: italic;">mael</span> meaning "grinding," the combined meaning of the word is "grinding current". In general, the word refers specifically to a whirlpool, but it is often used figuratively to mean "chaos".<br /><br />The other bit of storm chasing word confusion we encountered was the use of the word<span style="font-style: italic;"> transverse</span> instead of <span style="font-style: italic;">traverse </span>- one of the storm chasers, this one an engineer, was speaking of a supercell thunderstorm that was going to "transverse the countryside". The word <span style="font-style: italic;">transverse</span> is technically not a verb. It's an adjective or a noun that refers to something that crosses or is at right angles to something else. It's understandable that a storm chaser with an engineering background might switch the two words inadvertently in speech, but it's interesting nonetheless.<br /><br />Until next time,<br />Take Our Word For It!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-13898454546135694132008-09-17T20:54:00.000-07:002008-09-17T21:26:37.123-07:00Unfortunate Error<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZ3yspj5cTGfXb4xpjLBI0N_urvwywFgufIsDluyoIJU6PeASP16iBtE7PLrMBbGadwB5jcfd7Tu_qSTyT_6P96_Lk_fN5VjBk8RHvwRs8p08Fx8ANW0SUIRT4c60lqqLvwKJccpRPiNs/s1600-h/DSC01161.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZ3yspj5cTGfXb4xpjLBI0N_urvwywFgufIsDluyoIJU6PeASP16iBtE7PLrMBbGadwB5jcfd7Tu_qSTyT_6P96_Lk_fN5VjBk8RHvwRs8p08Fx8ANW0SUIRT4c60lqqLvwKJccpRPiNs/s320/DSC01161.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5247208002668298850" border="0" /></a>We were watching The Weather Channel while Hurricane Ike (sans Tina) came ashore in Galveston, Texas last weekend. There was lots of live video from Galveston and Houston, plus lots of glitzy graphics. We were surprised, however, to see The Weather Channel use the graphic above.<br /><br />OK, if you can't hear us, move up to the front of the class -- AFFECT is most often a verb meaning "have an impact on". EFFECT is most often a noun, as in "sound effects." This means that The Weather Channel picked the wrong spelling - it should have been "Feeling the <span style="font-style: italic;">EFFECTS</span> of Ike."<br /><br />Don't get us wrong, we love The Weather Channel (Melanie does have a degree in meteorology, after all, AND The Weather Channel created a commercial out of a letter she wrote back in the 1980s). We just want them to take a little more care and check their word choice in graphics before airing those graphics.<br /><br />We wish those AFFECTED by Hurricane Ike a quick recovery from the damage and hardship inflicted by the storm.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-24785627039269427532008-08-19T21:50:00.000-07:002008-08-19T23:05:30.116-07:00Elevens and TwelvesAfter having awakened in the middle of the night, one of us (who shall remain nameless) started thinking about etymology while trying to get to sleep. We have some great ideas in that state, but we never want to turn on the light and write them down as we're afraid it will awaken us even more and we'll never get back to sleep. So these brilliant ideas are usually gone by the next morning. However, for some reason, the question of the etymology of <span style="font-style: italic;">eleven</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">twelve </span>stuck. Why those words decided to present themselves at that early hour of the morning, though, is a mystery! It was nowhere near 11:00 or 12:00 when the words were occupying the mind of the one of us who was awake (it was closer to 3:00 or 4:00 am!).<br /><br />What's up with <span style="font-style: italic;">eleven </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">twelve</span>? They bear little resemblance to their brothers and sisters <span style="font-style: italic;">thirteen</span> through <span style="font-style: italic;">nineteen</span>. The etymological constructions of the latter are pretty obvious: a single digit number (excluding zero, one or two) plus ten. So <span style="font-style: italic;">thirteen </span>is "three [and] ten". <span style="font-style: italic;">Nineteen</span> is "nine [and] ten". If we look at <span style="font-style: italic;">twelve</span>, we can see the <span style="font-style: italic;">two</span> component in the <span style="font-style: italic;">tw-</span>. But what is the rest of it? -<span style="font-style: italic;">Elve</span>? Are we talking the Sylvan Folk here? No. And look at <span style="font-style: italic;">eleven</span>. It is quite similar to <span style="font-style: italic;">-elve</span>, eh?<br /><br />We should not be surprised that most English number words come from Germanic roots. The Germanic numbers share similarities with Romance numbers as both German and Romance languages have a common ancestor, called Indo-European. As regular readers of TOWFI know, Indo-European is a collection of hypothetical root words reconstructed, simply speaking, from the commonalities among the Indo-European languages. English <span style="font-style: italic;">one</span> and Spanish <span style="font-style: italic;">uno</span>, both meaning "one," are similar because they both derive from the hypothetical Indo-European <span style="font-style: italic;">oino-</span> "one".<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Oino</span>- turns up in <span style="font-style: italic;">eleven</span>, believe it or not. It is thought that <span style="font-style: italic;">eleven </span>is composed of <span style="font-style: italic;">oino-</span> plus the element <span style="font-style: italic;">-lif-</span>. Etymologists are not quite sure where the latter comes from. It is found in most of the Germanic languages as part of their words for <span style="font-style: italic;">eleven. </span>Some derive <span style="font-style: italic;">-lif-</span> from a hypothetical Germanic root <span style="font-style: italic;">leiq</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">leip</span> which mean "to leave, to remain". Huh? Well, if you put the two elements, <span style="font-style: italic;">oino-</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">-lif</span>- together, you have "one left" or "one remaining". If you've got eleven walnuts, when you've counted ten of them, you have one left. We all know that many human societies use base-ten counting systems because humans have ten fingers. In fact, all of the English number words between and including thirteen and twenty contain references to "ten" (the <span style="font-style: italic;">-teen</span> element, of course, which is <span style="font-style: italic;">-ty</span> in the case of <span style="font-style: italic;">twenty</span>). So it should not be surprising to find that <span style="font-style: italic;">eleven </span>contains a reference to ten, even if it is an unspoken one.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Twelve</span>'s etymology is similar. It is composed of the Germanic elements <span style="font-style: italic;">twa</span>- "two" and <span style="font-style: italic;">lib-</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">lif-</span>, thought to be related to the <span style="font-style: italic;">leiq</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">leip</span> elements mentioned above, and all likely being related to the Germanic <span style="font-style: italic;">liban</span> "to leave". <span style="font-style: italic;">B</span>s and <span style="font-style: italic;">V</span>s get substituted for one another now and again in the Germanic languages, so keeping that in mind, you should be able to see how similar <span style="font-style: italic;">liban</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">leave</span> are. Anyhow, this means that <span style="font-style: italic;">twelve</span> is, etymologically, "two left [after counting to ten]".<br /><br />Speaking of elevens and twelves, it's between 11:00 pm and 12:00 am here, so it's time to sign off!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-55858340073436144292008-08-03T11:52:00.001-07:002008-08-03T11:55:33.124-07:00Content from the Old Blog and Some New Etymologies - August 3 2008Well, it looks like it's going to be easier to save the old blog's content as a web page (or several) at TOWFI. There is no easy way to import the old material into this blog. So that means the old blog material won't be available for a while. We have re-indexed our site through our search engine so that those blog entries have been removed (for now). Once we get those entries into the site, we'll re-index so that they'll turn up in search results again.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7sQ4JG1HueAn7jcsGrrRChAl3h2mz43tOw-KCC3mMWJ44DAIgzwjZ1ia7XSNCC7XoIE5Pk3pdNh3xXm5vInUKlkjAlHodNq4fp79js5HLV6fqPrPhSe4UWXtGE6-KFleiZtrgNSqb4X1A/s1600-h/elbow.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7sQ4JG1HueAn7jcsGrrRChAl3h2mz43tOw-KCC3mMWJ44DAIgzwjZ1ia7XSNCC7XoIE5Pk3pdNh3xXm5vInUKlkjAlHodNq4fp79js5HLV6fqPrPhSe4UWXtGE6-KFleiZtrgNSqb4X1A/s200/elbow.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5230363963128151458" border="0" /></a>Meantime, we have been wondering about the word <span style="font-style: italic;">elbow</span>. Melanie's got an irritated <span style="font-style: italic;">ulnar</span> nerve, making her elbow tender and her hand tingly. The source of <span style="font-style: italic;">el-</span> in <span style="font-style: italic;">ellbow</span> is English <span style="font-style: italic;">ell</span>, which is cognate with Greek <span style="font-style: italic;">ulna</span>, both meaning "arm". The <span style="font-style: italic;">-bow</span> element in <span style="font-style: italic;">elbow</span> means "bend". Just as when you <span style="font-style: italic;">bow</span>, you bend at the waist, and a <span style="font-style: italic;">bow-legged</span> person has slightly bent legs, the <span style="font-style: italic;">ell bow</span> is the "arm bend". An <span style="font-style: italic;">oxbow</span> was originally a bowed piece of wood used to<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/glossary/o_r/oxbow_lake.html"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSWuKXDEi428W1JH9zwur74JYfYQMPwy6opFEgrPUzKH7DxTY_lVJbZtRrXPscuUMK-JO-LrZ08y55hZVfRbVg8XGvPIv_5IF-Zc2krc0OJ17mFiBFcnaFv4vG2jgNscqMSoSjXiXQrCJi/s200/oxbow_lake_small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5230365116063746722" border="0" /></a> form a collar for draught oxen, and so in America, the <span style="font-style: italic;">oxbow</span>-shaped, cut-off loops of rivers became known as <span style="font-style: italic;">oxbows</span>.<br /><br />In looking at quotations containing early instances of <span style="font-style: italic;">elbow</span>, we came upon the word <span style="font-style: italic;">handwyrste</span> (from about 1000 AD). Huh? Yes, they did sometimes call the <span style="font-style: italic;">wrist</span> a <span style="font-style: italic;">handwrist</span>, and looking into the etymology of <span style="font-style: italic;">wrist</span> helps explain why the word <span style="font-style: italic;">wrist</span> did not always suffice on its own. <span style="font-style: italic;">Wrist</span> comes ultimately from a Germanic root which means "to writhe". So the <span style="font-style: italic;">handwrist</span> was the "hand writhing" or the thing that allowed the hand as a whole to move and "writhe". Eventually, since no other body parts were called "writhings", the "hand" element was dropped.<br /><br />For some reason <span style="font-style: italic;">wrist</span> reminded us of the word <span style="font-style: italic;">wick</span>. Not the thing in the center of candles, or related words. No, we mean <span style="font-style: italic;">wick</span> as in "alive". If you are familiar with the musical <span style="font-style: italic;">The Secret Garden</span>, you may remember the song from it that contains the line, "If a thing is <span style="font-style: italic;">wick</span> it will grow." Well, the setting of that musical is Yorkshire, and we find that <span style="font-style: italic;">wick</span> in this sense is indeed a Yorkshire word. Where did it come from? It is a variant of<span style="font-style: italic;"> quick</span>! As in the <span style="font-style: italic;">quick </span>of your <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.takeourword.com/images/yogh.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.takeourword.com/images/yogh.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>fingernail, or the <span style="font-style: italic;">quick and the dead</span>, or <span style="font-style: italic;">quicksilver. </span>See our <a href="http://www.takeourword.com/Issue047.html#Spotlight">discussion of <span style="font-style: italic;">quick</span> in Issue 47 of TOWFI</a>.<br /><br />By the way, <span style="font-style: italic;">elbow</span> dates from about 1000 AD in English (in the form <span style="font-style: italic;">elbo#a</span>, where the # represents the old English character <span style="font-style: italic;">yogh</span>, which Blogspot doesn't seem to recognize, but there's a lovely image of it at left. You can also <a href="http://www.takeourword.com/TOW142/page1.html">read about Old English characters in Issue 142 of TOWFI</a>. <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Oxbow</span></span><span> dates from 1797 in the U.S. </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Wrist </span>appears a bit earlier in the written record than <span style="font-style: italic;">elbow</span>, about 940 AD, in the form <span style="font-style: italic;">wriste</span>. And <span style="font-style: italic;">wick </span><span>in our sense</span> dates only from about 1760 in the form <span style="font-style: italic;">whick</span>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355319149523197079.post-12520660851685314972008-07-26T15:35:00.001-07:002008-07-26T16:27:36.970-07:00NEW Take Our Word For It Blog - July 26 2008Greetings, TOWFI Readers,<br /><br />As you may have seen, our previous blog was hacked! The nerve! Our domain host offered an old version of WordPress blog software (we learned this tidbit when it was too late to be of any good to us!). That old version has lots of security holes, so some Russian hackers got in and hid lots of code in our blog, linking to sites about Viagra and similar subjects. If we deleted everything and started over with that old version of WordPress, we'd be open to re-attack. Therefore, we decided to move to Blogspot, which already hosted a blog for us (unrelated to TOWFI).<br /><br />We were able to save all of our entries, and comments to them, from the old blog, and we will load them here soon.<br /><br />As far as the features of this new blog, check out the etymology news at right! This and other cool options from Blogspot tell us we picked the right blog host!<br /><br />We are truly planning to publish TOWFI again soon. Mike was involved in a time-intensive contract job which is now winding down. Looking forward to the extra free-time, he wants to completely revamp the site, in addition to creating new issues, so stay tuned! Etymology is on the way!<br /><br />Best wishes,<br />Melanie and Mike<br />Take Our Word For It<br />http://www.takeourword.comAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587464763230051621noreply@blogger.com5