2552: arsenic Dec 8, 2021

'Arsenic' shares the same root as 'glass' and 'glow', even though they don't sound similar. This is because of how the word for 'arsenic' was borrowed through Persian. There was a folk etymology for a while that it was from the Greek αρσέν (arsen) meaning 'masculine; virile', which some people associated because of the overall powerful nature of the material. This is not true.

2548: melancholy Dec 4, 2021

Like 'gall' and its connection (supposedly) to the gallbladder 'melancholy' was also once a pseudo-medical term. The word Ancient Greek μελαγχολία (melankholía), from μέλας (mélas) meaning 'black; murky'—same root as 'melanin'—and χολή (kholḗ) meaning 'bile', which is the same root as 'cholera'. This black bile, known in Latin as atra bilis (dark bile) believed as a kidney secretion which in excess causes sadness.

2539: Cypro-Minoan Syllabary: Linear C Nov 25, 2021

Early forms of Greek used their own early forms of writing known as Linear A and Linear B. At one point the term "Linear C" was in use, though that has now basically been usurped by "Cypro-Minoan syllabary". This was, too, used for what has been deduced as an early variety of Greek, with most inscriptions in this writing system found on the island of Cyprus with others found one location of the Syrian coast. This was brought by Minoan settlers from Crete. Although this early writing had existed in its evolved forms for at least 14 centuries from the creation of Linear A to the decline of its final descendants, these characters did not survive.

2538: Cypriot Syllabary Nov 24, 2021

The Republic of Cyprus is the only other country to officially use the Greek alphabet, but in the ancient world it had its own writing system for its particular dialect of Greek. Developed from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary, the Cypriot syllabary is a unique system, unrelated to the later Greek alphabet or its predecessors. The oldest known inscriptions were found from about 1500BC and other fragments indicate it was in use nearly a millennium later. Eventually, this would be replaced by foreign systems and end that particular chain of writing systems descended from Linear A.

2524: gum Nov 10, 2021

Although the term for the product of the resin is 'rubber' in English, the resin itself is known as 'gum'. This is from Ancient Egyptian qmyt (resin; gum), also related to qmy (oil). This was the source of many related European words thanks to its adoption into Ancient Greek and Latin which begot many terms, but also Semitic terms like Hebrew גומי (gumi) and Aramaic גמי (gami), and via Greek קומא‎ (quma), with the later being specific to acacia. On the other hand, 'rubber' is just from the material's association to erasers, and another term, 'caoutchouc' is from Nahuatl, but only refers to unvulcanized rubber.

2523: Mysterious Origins of Diego Nov 9, 2021

The Spanish name Santiago is from an earlier Sant Yago, but in English this is the name of Saint James. The discrepancy in the name goes even further, since in Hebrew the name is יעקב (Yaaqov). That said, it is not certain by any means that what was once thought to be the successor to 'Yago', namely 'Diego' is in fact descended from יעקב (Yaaqov) even though this would definitely not be the most radical shift over the years. Instead, the current theory is that this is from 'Didacus', itself from the Greek Διάδοχος (Diadochos) meaning 'heir; successor', though the shift in vowels from that to 'Diego' is not explained. What is certain is that 'Díaz' and its variations are just the patronymic form of 'Diego'.

2521: abacus Nov 7, 2021

The word 'abacus' came to English from Latin hence the plural 'abaci', but this word might really have a semitic origin. While now the term is used exclusively to refer to the mathematical instrument, it used to be more generic, denoting many types of boards including board-game boards and sand tables, as with the Ancient Greek ἄβαξ (ábax). This has been likened to the Hebrew אבק‎ (āvāq) meaning 'dust' which would explain the senses of the Catalan 'àbac' meaning both 'mathematical table' and 'board covered in sand'.

2520: Koppa Ϙ/ϙ Nov 6, 2021

The Phoenician abjad, which is the origin of the Greek alphabet, contained certain letters for sounds that in Greek didn't exist. The Phoenician qoph (pronounced [q]) didn't exist in Greek, and since Greek could already use Κ (kappa) the Greek letter koppa (Ϙ, ϙ) was used before back-vowels. This practice was retained in Etruscan and Italic languages for a while, but unlike Q, which also came from this same Phoenician letter, Ϙ in Greek didn't survive, except sometimes for numerical purposes to represent 90. It is a similar story with the Cyrillic koppa (Ҁ ҁ) which is also now archaic.

2517: mentor Nov 3, 2021

Although the word 'mentor' is from Ancient Greek, it only started to be used as a word in the 18th century. Instead, this word comes from the name of a character Μέντωρ (Mentor) in Homer's Odyssey, namely the adviser of Telemachus. That said, the root of this word is connected to the idea itself, and related to the English 'mind', Latin 'monitor', and Sanskrit मन्तृ (mantṛ). So, while it is technically from a name, the name was given presumably due to who the character was.

2515: A Shift in Latin 3rd Person Endings Nov 1, 2021

In Latin, the present tense, 3rd person endings are singular '-t' and plural '-unt'. In Proto-Italic however, these were featured an [i] at the end, i.e. '-ti' and '-unti' respectively, though not always spelt that way specifically. This was probably related to the way that Greek constructed its verbs, though it did eventually drop off. There are inscriptions in Pompeii however that show 'estē' for what would be the Classical Latin 'est'. Indeed, Pompeii is a great source for popular writing as opposed to more formal, high-register, and perhaps most importantly edited writing. This alternate form might have been the source for Romanian's verb endings which look like that today somewhat.

2507: Candace: Mistaken for a Biblical Name Oct 23, 2021

Candace is ostensibly a (New Testament) biblical name, but it was not actually a name. Referred to as a queen in the text, the word was written as Κανδάκη (Kandakē) in Greek, from Kdke in the Meroitic language of the Cushites, was a specific title for the sister of a king. This sort of terminology was commonly used around the region, especially around what is now Ethiopia, but later Greek and Roman sources misunderstood this and treated it as her personal name in Acts. This is how it came to be a name in English, despite it not technically being a biblical name, per se.

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.

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.

2495: Greek-Based Nubian Writing Oct 11, 2021

The Greek alphabet led to the creation of numerous other writing systems around Europe, including Coptic, Gothic, Latin (via Old Italian), Cyrillic (via Glagolitic), Armenian, and Georgian. As impressive as this is, it used to be practiced more broadly and thus adapted more widely, particularly with association to Christianity. Even after the Arab invasions, those kingdoms withstood and remained Christian, maintaining a Greek-based writing system until the collapse of their kingdom to the Mamluks and later Ottomans, by which point most people were illiterate and the writing fell into terminal decline.

2486: Linear A & B Oct 2, 2021

The Greek alphabet was ultimately derived from Phoenician (a.k.a. Punic; a.k.a. Canaanite), but considering the shapes of the letters, the inclusion of vowels, and changing direction of the writing itself, this was not an immediate process. Two writing systems, known as Linear A and Linear B, emerged in the eastern Mediterranean. Linear A was used from about 1800–1450 BC with no decipherable texts to date, but was used by the Mycenaeans (Minoans): early Greeks based in the Aegean and especially Crete. Already Linear A switched to a left-to-right script, and in addition to containing symbols for old letters, there are new letters, grammatical symbols, whole syllables and a number system including fractions. In Linear B, also used by the Mycenaeans from about 1450 BC until the Bronze Age Collapse, seemingly for primarily official purposes. Like Linear A, some symbols were letters and others whole syllables—not unlike Egyptian hieroglyphs in that way—with about 200 overall signs. Ultimately, these, and other scripts used for early Greek language writing can help to show the transition of a once glyph-based system of representing words and sounds into a recognizable form of the alphabets it led to.

2457: Solomon Sep 3, 2021

The Hebrew given name שלמה (Shlomo) ‎is Solomon in English, and features this extra terminal -N in most other languages except Jewish ones like Yiddish. Even in the fellow Semitic language of Arabic it is →سُلَيْمَان‎ (Suleimān) this is present. This is because of the Greek influence over the other major sources of the name's wider adoption like Latin and Syriac Aramaic, with Greek adding a '-on' suffix which was just retained elsewhere. Between Latin in the Christian world and Arabic in the Muslim world, many languages of totally variant language families have this terminal -N, with a notable exception of Spanish which got its version (Zulema) from Arabic.

2456: Fraternities Using Greek Sep 2, 2021

Fraternities and Sororities in North America usually use 2 or 3 Greek letters in their names. Some of these don't stand for anything, but originally these secret societies, now public, used Greek mottos, such as the oldest, ΦΒΚ, standing for Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης (Philosophia Biou Kybernētēs) literally translating as "love of wisdom [philosophy] is the helmsman of life", or ΔΥ standing for Δικαια Υποθηκη (Dikaia Upotheke) for 'justice, our foundation'. Some fraternal societies have kept these mottos secret, or have just picked Greek letters for nothing in particular.

2453: Secunda Aug 29, 2021

One of the best ways that Biblical Hebrew phonology is understood is from the Secunda, of the Hexapla. This is part of a 6-level interlinear translation into Greek of which the Secunda is a Greek-alphabet transliteration of the Hebrew text, written in about AD 3rd century. Obviously this has its own issues for basing one's understanding of the sounds of Biblical Hebrew, but it does lend some insight. Certain sounds represented in the Greek lettering are significantly different to the modern or modern liturgical varieties of Hebrew, each having their own differences anyway. This is especially useful to glean from local place names, but again, is limited insofar as any writing system will be when used by foreigners for a language with no major similarity.

2452: New Latin Spellings: Things of the Past Aug 28, 2021

The words 'dinosaur' and 'deinonychus' both come from the same root, with the first element. The first part of 'dinosaur', coined in 1842, is from Ancient Greek δεινός (deinós) meaning 'terrible'. That said, it came to English through New Latin which has a standardized way of transliterating Greek into Latin letters, including going from Greek < ει > to Latin < ī >, and < ός > into < us >. Later, scientists stopped using (New) Latin as much—even though here it may technically be listed as being of New Latin—and even if they would, it was not with any real consistency: 'Utahraptor'. As a result, the word over 120 years later, 'deinonychus', uses <ei>.