702: fun, fond, and dupe Nov 9, 2016

In hard times, it is important to try to have fun. Humans—and probably animals too but let's not go there—have a wonderful way of turning stresses into comedy, since otherwise issues would be looming and frightening all of the time. It might not then come as a shock that the root for 'fun', which used to be a verb meaning ‘to cheat or hoax,’ and as a noun, ‘make a fool of’. English also gained the word, 'fond' from this, though both it and 'fun' have changed meanings through the centuries. Closer to the original sense, however, the word, 'dupe' is also related, except here, the word is said to come from the bird, hoopoe, named based off of the sound they make. For more on bird-related terms, click here.