2625: 'Capital' in Asian Capital Cities Feb 22, 2022

As seen in ‘Tokyo‘, mentioned yesterday, It is actually a common tradition to include the word and character for 'capital' (京) in the name of Asian capital cities. This same character is pronounced 'jing' in Chinese and is found in other places around modern China. The former capital of Japan, Kyoto (京都) has this, as does Keijō (京城) in South Korea, both meaning 'capital city' in their respective languages. In China there is Beijing (北京) or 'Northern Capital', Nanjing (南京) or 'Southern Capital', and Xijing (西京) or 'Western Capital'. There are plenty more such examples, but this is just a few.

2624: Kyoto & Tokyo Feb 21, 2022

The fact that a former capital (Kyoto) and current capital of Japan (Tokyo) are anagrams is fun, but not so surprising. The original name for Tokyo was Edo, which means 'estuary', owing to the natural geography. During the Meiji Restoration it was changed to Tokyo (東京) from 東 (east) pronounced 'to' and 京 (capital) pronounced 'kyō'. Therefore, Kyoto means the same thing, but in a different order, and the reason that the characters look different (京都) is because this is older and comes from Middle Chinese.

2400: chattel & cattle Jul 15, 2021

While the word 'chattel' is fairly unremarkable in its etymology, its history is enlightening. Unsurprisingly, it is related to the word 'cattle' and 'capital' in the sense of 'head'. The sense of any property goods, as opposed to real estate, was well established by the Middle Ages, certainly with some association to the meaning of 'cattle'. It was in the mid-17th century took on specific associations with slavery, and many abolitionists took the word with a new political meaning in their writings to emotional impact.