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.
2666: Why 'Morse' Code Apr 5, 2022
Samuel Morse is known for inventing Morse code, but that was not particular to him. He and Alfred Vail developed the electrical telegraph system that would initially place the dots and dashes on a paper tape at the other end of the wire, though operators found listening to the clicks to be more efficient. That said, Morse's original idea for a system was to transmit the dots-&-dashes as numbers only, and to have a system for interpreting the numbers as words. Alfred Vail was the one who came up with the idea of encoding letters through those dots-&-dashes, and worked out the relative frequencies of each to make the system the most efficient with shorter codes for more common letters. Arguably, given the great mechanical and cypher-based contributions, it might have been more fittingly Vail code.
2664: ⌘ Command Key Symbol Apr 3, 2022
The command key symbol ⌘ for Macintosh, sometimes called the Apple key, was developed after Steve Jobs was concerned that using the Apple logo instead would be overused. The idea was inspired from similar symbols used to mark cultural heritage sites in some Nordic countries, hence why it is known as Fornminne (ancient monument) in Swedish, and Seværdighedstegn (landmark signs) in Danish. Since the command key is to allow the user to access certain shortcuts with the keyboard, but the precise history of the symbol in Scandinavia is somewhat mysterious.
2663: Ƶ & the Nazis Apr 2, 2022
The letter Z, and especially with a crossbar Ƶ, became a symbol closely associated with the Nazis, at least on first glance. Strictly speaking, the Ƶ iconography is not a letter, at least not originally, but a rendering of an old hunting tool known in German as a Wolfsangel, or wolf's hook in English. Basically, it was a metal, Z-shape set of hooked barbs, often with another spiked bar in the middle, which would be embedded in meat and left for wolves to eat and impale themselves on. This was associated with a rebellion after a 15th century peasant uprising used it symbolically, and it also looks like a Germanic rune eihwaz ᛇ. While the latter factor added extra Germanic symbolism, it is not why it became associated with the Nazis.
2653: Decline of Long S Mar 23, 2022
Like the decline of other letters in English history, the death blow to the long-s ⟨ſ⟩ was printing. Unlike other letters like ⟨Ð,ð⟩ or ⟨Æ, æ⟩ that died in English even earlier because the first printing presses were from Flanders and Germany where those symbols weren't present, ⟨ſ⟩ was used in German and indeed most European scripts. This allowed the character to survive into the very beginning of the 18th century, but extra cost for casting more types as well as extra effort for printers both in selection and in kerning made this a less appealing choice. Around this time, casters stopped making them and many prominent publishers didn't use them which normalized the practice. In Handwriting, the practice persistent for another half-century or so, but was eventually not emphasized in schools and went by the wayside as well.
2650: Long S Mar 20, 2022
There is something called the long s ⟨ſ⟩, which people may be familiar with from printed documents before the 19th century especially. This is often confused with an ⟨f⟩ on first glance, but the two are unrelated. The long s, distinguished from the 'round s', dates back to Roman times at the time the upper & lower case letters were being distinguished, but before there were clear rules about them. The Greek sigma also is unique in the Greek alphabet for having three forms, and represents broadly the same sound, but that's not related. This was later formalized in German printing especially. After the start of the 18th century, it became phased out as it was harder for typists, required an extra letter in print types, and was not seen as providing enough benefit to account for the extra work. There will be more on the form & history of the long s in coming posts.
2621: AD-CE Feb 17, 2022
The system of BCE-CE for dating years as opposed to BC-AD is in some ways older than most people would likely imagine. While the abbreviations themselves are fairly new, the terminology has been found since the 18th century. However, it is exactly the same in everything but name, including quirks like not having a year 0. Since in the religious context this is based off of a fixed event, or at least intends to be, the lack of 0 makes sense with AD.
2607: Golden Horde Feb 3, 2022
There was a reason for the naming of Black-, Red- and White Russia, only one of which survives now, but this is not the same reason for the Golden Horde. That name is disputed, but the English name for the self-titled Ulug Ulus ("Great State") either comes from a calque of the Russian Золотая Орда (Zolotája Orda) which was a reference to the color of the war-time tents of some of their troops, or alternatively was a reference to the tribute that the Slavs needed to pay. That said, the color-inspired names of the White- or Blue Horde as the name for the troops' left wing has been found in many languages and from different sources, with some evidence to believe the Mongols referred to them as well as the Blue Horde.
2597: Denny's Jan 24, 2022
While company names don't always have any particular source in reality, the story of Denny's is more specific. This was previously "Denny's Coffee Shop", that too being a name change as a way to distinguish from "Dan's Coffee Shop" located nearby before it was an international chain. Beforehand it was "Danny's Coffee Shop" but this too wasn't original. The original name was Danny's Donuts, but founded by no one named Danny: rather a Harold Butler & Richard Jezak who just thought the name was catchy.
2588: Cyclopamine and Sonic Hedgehog Jan 14, 2022
In 1957 farmers in Idaho reported their lambs were born cycloptic. After over a decade, the chemical found corn lily when ingested by the pregnant ewes was shown to cause this, then named 'cyclopamine'. This chemical compound has many more medical effects than cyclopia, and is indeed significant for many cancer treatments. As humorous as the naming of a chemical compound after a Greek mythical monster, it's function in the body is to stop the sonic hedgehog signal during development. This name, as is perhaps more obvious, was named for the videogame character.
2566: Eastern Iranian Peoples to the West Dec 22, 2021
Although tens of millions of people speak Iranian languages like Farsi, or Pashto which is an Eastern Iranian language, far to the west of that is Ossetia where a Northeastern Iranian language is spoken between Georgia and Russia. In fact, a number of groups of related groups moved over, some even further such as the Jász in central Hungary, and the Alans who ended up in Spain and North Africa with the fall of the Romans. Now the Ossetians are the largest of these groups, each of whom are or were surrounded by unrelated languages and peoples, from Iranian groups settled to the east of those heartlands.
2564: Ursula Dec 20, 2021
The name 'Ursula' is from the Latin 'ursa' (meaning 'bear'), with the feminine diminutive suffix '-ula', but that is not the main reason why people would chose to give that name perhaps. The popularity came from a 4th century saint, Saint Ursula. Many fantastic stories exist about her, though the exact historical record on her is not solid. Still, in addition to making famous an old Latin name—especially in non-Romance speaking areas especially in Slavic Eastern Europe—she also inspired the name for the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, among other places.
2551: When was the 1st British Prime Minister Dec 7, 2021
What is now thought of with the title of 'prime minister' was only called First Lord of the Treasury, officially, before 1905 in Great Britain. This was used for Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who was also First Lord of the Treasury. This is still true today with prime ministers also carrying the less well known title of First Lord of the Treasury. The man usually credited as being the first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole was only de facto the first, but in 1721 was technically named First Lord of the Treasury.
2547: gall & gallbladder Dec 3, 2021
To have gall, as in spirited gumption, and to have a gallbladder where the liver's bile is stored might not seem related at first glance, but to doctors of less enlightened times, these would. Linguistically, these are from the same root, and the organ is so named because of Medieval idea of the humors, which is to say it was where one of the four humors (fluids) was stored, believed to be the source of physical and mental characteristics depending on their quantity. In this case, the yellow bile was associated with gumption.
2536: Bad Censorship (by Catholics) Nov 22, 2021
Catholic censors of the Talmud (the compilation of Jewish oral-law) were tasked with removing sections that the Church didn't like, but often with a clear lack of understanding of the language. In one instance, these censors were told to replace any use of גוי (goi) which literally just means 'nation' with עכו"ם (akum), an acronym עבודת כוכבים ומזלות (avdos cochavim u'mazlos) meaning 'worshiper of stars and constellations', including replacing a quote from Exodus גוי קדוש (goy kadosh) meaning 'holy nation' referring to the Jewish people. This resulted in a quote from the Bible being rewritten as "holy star worshipers" by the Catholics.
2527: birching Nov 13, 2021
Birching is a practice of corporal punishment, commonly sentenced legally in the past, wherein one is beaten with branches, usually at one's backside. This, despite the name, did not always involve birchwood. In the Isle of Man, the last place to use this as legal punishment in Europe, used hazelwood into the 1970's which was supposedly more painful than birch, despite the technical term 'birch rod'.
2503: satin Oct 19, 2021
China was famous historically for being the starting point of the Silk Road, but along with carrying satin it was a major means of language transfer. Satin is named for the Chinese city of 泉州 (Quanzhou) which literally means “spring prefecture”, but in Arabic this is زَيْتُون (zaytūn) meaning "olive tree", itself a translation of "Tung Tree City", for the many trees planted by its 10th century prince. The Arabic term was taken into French first before its adoption into English.
2502: Kappa(maki): Sushi from a Sea-Monster Oct 18, 2021
Kappa rolls—sushi rolls filled with cucumber—are named for a sea monster of Japanese folklore. The connection between a humanoid, web-toed, turtle-shelled sea monster might not seem immediately obvious. This is because in that mythology, the creature was thought to like to eat cucumbers, and people would even make offerings involving the vegetable, hence 河童巻 (kappamaki).
2500: Bears: How Fear Developed Terminology Oct 16, 2021
The word 'bear' and its many similar Germanic counterparts, along with other very different sounding words of Northern European regions diverge from the Proto-Indo-European '*rtko' as seen in the Latin 'ursus' and Greek αρκτικός (arktikos). The Proto-Germanic '*berô' is related to the word 'brown' (and as a matter of course, 'beaver') meaning 'brown one'. Many people have claimed this is as a euphemistic reference from fear of bears who more prevalently inhabited Northern Europe than around the Mediterranean where they were fewer and smaller. Not only Germanic languages have this phenomenon, as the Russian медведь (medved) means 'honey-eater' and some Celtic references once had similar euphemistic qualities.
2499: hippocampus: Seahorses, Monsters, & the Brain Oct 15, 2021
The hippocampus is a ridge of the base of the brain thought to control emotion and the nervous system, but it's also the name for the genus a seahorse and a mythical monster. This is because the Ancient Greek ἱππόκαμπος (hippókampos) literally means "horse sea-monster", which in Greek mythology consisted of a mermaid style horse-headed-fish-bodied and often winged creature. Little seahorses took this as a Latin name, despite the non-Latin origins. As far as its connection to the brain goes, this was not immediately obvious and the first descriptions go from the idea of a silkworm or ram's horns—even proposing another myth-based name 'Ammonis'—but did later reference its shape to the seahorse which eventually won out.