2673: Foy–Breguet Telegraph System Apr 12, 2022
France was, of the developed nations in Europe, one of the last to see widespread use of a electric telegraph system. This was because there was already a large optical telegraph system, which was less susceptible to sabotage without external hardware, like the cable of electric telegraph systems. So, between the eras of the optical telegraph until the use of Morse code, the French used the Foy–Breguet system was in place, using two needles to visually indicate letters on a dial. The benefit was that it used the same orientations of the needles as were found on an optical telegraph, avoiding the need to retrain operators. It was electric though, not mechanical, so more efficient and easier to use than the previous system, now having the needles pulled into position by electromagnets. Still, the extent of the optical telegraph in France, not matched anywhere else, kept them more resistant to a newer, better system.
2633: engage & wed Mar 3, 2022
Thematically an engagement is related to a wedding, one following the other, but the words are linked as well. The word 'wed' from Old English 'weddian' meant 'to pledge', and in many other Germanic languages it denotes betting. It's from the same root as 'wage' which can mean 'pledge' in the sense of commiting to an obligation (to wage war; worker's wages) or committing to a bet (a.k.a. 'wager'). Often a W and G will morphe one to the other, and in Romance languages where 'gage' or more popularly 'engage' were adopted into English from that same root too.
2627: grenade & pomegranate Feb 24, 2022
Although the only thing explosive about a pomegranate would be if its seeds are saturated with juice, the word 'grenade' comes from the same root as 'pomegranate'. The word is instead a reference to its shape, with a round body and a protruding head. Although the word is French, the spelling with a D by the end instead of a T is influenced from the Spanish 'granada'. This has nothing to do with the Spanish city 'Granada', whose name comes from Arabic.
2620 dungeon Feb 16, 2022
In the popular conception, dungeons are in the basement area, but in medieval times they would have been the top level of a tower. In fact, these were designed to be secure not because they were prisons per se, but as castle keeps, which is how the word meant in Middle English. This is still the case in the less well-known word 'donjon', likely based on the Latin 'dominus' meaning 'master' as it was the lord's tower most of the time; castles, ultimately, were homes.
2618: Gargoyles vs Grotesques Feb 14, 2022
People will often be confused between the differences of gargoyles and grotesques. A gargoyle is only a type of grotesque, and is a statue for the specific purpose of moving drain water away from walls. Without a statue, such a device would just be a spout. Without the function of moving water, the statues are known as 'grotesques'. These statues, which often depict monsters, take their name from the Latin 'grotto', which is a type of painting style notable for its obscene imagery, painted in caves or in private homes usually. 'Gargoyle' instead comes from the French 'gargouille' (throat) because it moved water as a pipe, and is related to 'gargle'.
2610: polecats Feb 6, 2022
Polecats and more related to dogs than cats, despite the name. The 'pole-' element at the beginning is not because of their pole-like weasel bodies, nor certainly ethnic poles. Rather, this is from the Middle French 'pole' meaning 'chicken', though it is not entirely clear why. The best theory is that this is what they eat. In Old English, they were known as 'folmart' literally 'foul marten' because of their bad smell. They also used to be known as a 'fitch'.
2604: Answering a Negative Question: 3-Form Systems Jan 31, 2022
Now only a historical detail, English used to have a 4-form system for answering questions with 'yes', 'no', 'yea', & 'nay', but this is not the only way to set it up. German has a 3 form system, as do many Germanic languages with normal 'ja' (yes), 'nein' (no), but also the word 'doch' which responds contrarily to a negative question to clarify that is it isn't affirming the negative. For instance:
You didn’t go?
Doch, [in fact, I did]
Without such a feature, to answer 'yes' in English is ambiguous. In addition to Germanic languages, French has this with 'oui' (yes), non (no), and its third form 'si' (yes, contrary to the negative). This shares a root with the Spanish 'sí' (yes), which does not have the same nuance.
2569: Greek Re-Borrowing 'Cinema' Dec 25, 2021
While English has a number of regional words for movie theater, including 'cinema', and this word has permeated many other languages. Originally from Greek κίνημα (kínima) meaning 'movement' and the same root as 'kinetic' led to the German 'Kino' (from 'Kinematograph') via the French 'cinéma(tographe)'. This was the later reborrowed into Greek σινεμά (sinemá) with that same meaning.
2567: fiance & betrothed Dec 23, 2021
Of descriptive titles for a person who is engaged, the most common include 'fiancé(e)' and 'betrothed'. Both of these, in fact have the same etymological basis even though they are from different languages. 'Fiancé(e)' is from French, though originally the root is with the Latin 'fidere' (related to 'fides') meaning 'to trust', or as a noun 'truth'. This is the same root as the English 'fidelity' as well as 'fealty' and 'fiat', which also connect the idea of 'trust' to agreements. 'Betroth' (or indeed 'troth') is from an old and now out-of-use form of 'truth', with 'troth' also having another sense of 'agreement' or 'pledge'. Unlike 'betroth/ed', English did not also take the verbal form of 'fiancé(e)' from French, which is 'fiancer', and so must use another word 'engaged'.
2562: cauliflower Dec 18, 2021
Many plants are related to cabbages biologically, but this is also reflected in the name of some foods. 'Cauliflower' for instance is from the dated French 'chou fleuri' meaning literally ‘flowered cabbage’. This on its own is pretty old, but the original English for this developed into 'colieflorie' with the first element influenced by 'cole' (related to 'kale') meaning 'cabbage'. This 'cole/kale' connection is also seen in borrowed from Dutch 'cole' for 'coleslaw'.
2530: Welsh Numbers Nov 16, 2021
People may be aware that French numbers use somewhat mathematical descriptions, like soixante-dix for 70 meaning sixty-ten, and 'quatre-vingts' for 80 meaning 'four-twenties' but Welsh numbers are even more extreme. Indeed, there are actually two different systems, one decimal and one vigesimal. The decimal system operates similarly to English's decimal system, but the vigesimal is base-20 for all numbers so to say '30' it is 'deg ar hugain' (ten on twenty), '40' is 'deugain' (two twenty) and likewise for 60 and 80. To say ‘70’ is 'deg a thrigain' (ten and three twenty) and likewise for 90, but 50 is 'hanner cant’ (half a hundred) which also does not exist in the decimal system. The vigesimal system is more common when talking about dates and ages etc. and people may switch back-and-forth. There are many internal variations as well, including dropping the prepositions, or adjectival forms.
2467: steward, constable, & marshal Sep 13, 2021
'Steward' and 'constable' are not related, but with somewhat convergent meaning from a definitions which would now be virtually unrecognizable that were equally similar in the past. The 'ste-' of 'steward' is from the same root as 'sty' as in 'pigsty' and '-stable of 'constable also became 'stable', as in where livestock live. Therefore, a steward was the ward (i.e. guard) of a sty, and a constable was the guard of a stables. The meaning of 'steward' as general manager of estates or ships etc. came much later, both from natural development and especially from confusion on translation of French terms after the Conquest of 1066. 'Constable' totally synonymous with 'steward' for a time, though eventually these affairs constables oversaw became increasingly, later exclusively legal in nature, hence its meaning as police officer. Likewise, 'marshal' went through a quite similar transformation, from 'mare-shalk' (i.e. 'horse guard') to a general official title related to law enforcement, though this historical change happened from French.
2451: Re-Latinization of (Vulgar) Romance Languages Aug 27, 2021
The modern standard Romance languages associated most as descendants of Latin would include French, Spanish, and Italian. Of those, each has varied over time to different degrees, but one of the reasons that Italian has diverged less than French for instance is that there were simply more, usually educated people who over time re-latinized the language. For instance, usually in French the 'al-' becomes [o] and this happens too in Spanish, such as 'alter' (Latin for 'other') becoming 'autre' in French, 'otro' in Spanish, but 'altro' in Italian. Even medieval Spanish is less like Latin in certain phonological ways than today due to similar efforts to transform Castilian in particular which is why some medieval text will use the form 'oto' for the Modern Spanish 'alto', from Latin 'altus' (high) but in French it is still 'haut(e)'.
2430: interest Aug 16, 2021
The original sense of the Latin word for 'interest', 'interesse', meant 'to be important'. This sense was not gotten from the Old French 'interest' though, even though this is exactly the same root, because at the point English took from French it meant 'damage; loss', and it was at this point the -t was added to the other English word. The early meaning having a share in ownership. It is not clear how this sense transferred to its current meaning of money to pay back on top of repaying a loan. The financial senses were cemented by the 16th and 17th centuries considering certain connotations, but the emotional sense was a little earlier.
2427: Gaul(e) & Gallia Aug 13, 2021
There are many names of places and people around Europe and Anatolia from the name *walhaz [1] such as in Wallonia, Wallachia, Wales and Cornwall, but even a more quintessentially Celtic name: Gaul. Not only is 'gaul' descended from this root meaning , but also the regions of Spain 'Galicia', Ukraine and Poland's 'Galicia', and Turkey's historical region of 'Galatia'. What is more surprising is that the Latin term for the modern France, 'Gallia', is not related to the French 'Gaule' even though this is often how the region is translated. The French word is from *walhaz, but the Latin 'Gallia' actually morphed through the regular sound shifts into the French 'Jaille' which is found in certain place-names across the country.
2420: trifle Aug 6, 2021
The English cake 'trifle' comes from a French word meaning 'deception', but no one is entirely sure of where it came from. The French word ' truffe' (deception) can't be reliably traced back further, but after this point its meaning softened to merely that of 'mockery', and eventually just 'idle; unimportant'. This is likely where the cake's name comes in, as at that point the idea was only of something taken lightly. Eventually it came to mean something of insignificant value, or just small.
2405: Chateau of Versailles... Jul 22, 2021
The Palace of Versailles is huge: 8.2 km². Still, the French name is 'Château de Versailles' (Chateau of Versailles), and not something like 'Palais de Versailles' (Palace...). The difference is fairly minute, but 'Chateau' in this case is not used how it was taken on to mean in English which is usually of a smaller estate especially for wine. Still, the word comes from the Old French 'chastel' which has the same root as 'castle'.
2398: pomegranate Jul 13, 2021
Pomegranate is pretty clearly involving the root of the French 'pomme' (Latin 'pomum') meaning 'apple' or more accurately 'fruit' but it is less clear about the second element. Some say this is from the Latin 'granatum' meaning 'seeds' from the root of *gre-no- (grain) but this is not the only theory. Part of the difficulty there is that the word used to be 'poumgarnet' and the '-gra-' came to be through metathesis, so to go on this etymology which does certainly have some historic backing would require two rounds of metathesis on the same term. Still, names including the Latin 'mālum grānātum' (seeded apple) and mālum Punicum (Punic apple) are attested historically, so this may just be so. The scientific name is Punica granatum, in line somewhat with the Roman naming.
2392: New Angoulême Jul 7, 2021
Old New York was once New Amsterdam, but before then even it was known as New Angoulême. While officially taken by a French voyage, the man who commanded the ship was Italian. Still, he wished to curry favor with the French king and Giovanni da Verrazzano named it after the place the king was born. In fact, Francis I was from the house of Valois, but of those there were 3 dynasties: the House of Valois, Valois-Orléans, Valois-Angoulême, the latter of which King, Francis I was the first monarch.
2371: mortimer Jun 15, 2021
The surname and later first name 'Mortimer' (hence 'Morty') is originally French for 'dead sea'. This habitational surname however is subject to a folk etymology that this comes from the time when a French speaking class ruled over the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291) as one of the crusader states. The Dead Sea at the end of the Jordan River is certainly more famous, but not the dead sea in question, which is actually Mortemer, Seine-Maritime, Normandy, in France. This was the site of the Battle of Mortemer in 1054 fought in this area known for its stagnant water.