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.

2498: antarctic Oct 14, 2021

The terms 'arctic' and 'antarctic', while obviously geographic references just references quantity of bears, etymologically speaking. Named for the Ancient Greek ἀνταρκτικός (antarktikós)—the Ancient Greeks not having travelled anywhere near there themselves—literally means 'no bears', from the prefix ἀντ- (ant-) meaning 'against' as in the Latinate 'anti-'. This is not specifically referencing bears as animals, even though this would actually be a true description of both regions, but of the constellation Ursa Major a.k.a. The Great Bear, and the terms originally just referenced the North and South of the world generally, as opposed to the poles specifically. Notably also, the first -c- in 'arctic' stopped being pronounced in French and English until the 15th century when it was brought back, but it wasn't until the 17th century that the first -c- of 'antarctic' was restored.