1571: march (Verb) Apr 3, 2019

While name for the month of March is known to have come from 'Mars', the Roman war deity, the origin of the verb is not totally understood. The English verb 'March' comes from Latin in which it denoted military campaigns, but after that there are competing theories. It could be from a Frankish word for borderland, and this would be supported by other related Germanic words like 'mark' related to borders and frontiers. Other, probably less likely theories posit that the word comes from a Gallo-Roman word for 'hammer' (i.e. stomp) while another is that it simply comes from the fact that Roman military campaigns were led in the Spring, and the name came from the month.

1570: March (Month) Apr 2, 2019

In Latin, it is a common occurance to see a [t] be substituted for an [s] in or vice versa in certain environments. This is how the English words 'admit' and '(ad)mission' are from the same root but look different, because the verb from which they both derive, 'mittere' ('to send') appeared as 'missus' ('sending') as a participle. Considering the month of March, this can be seen as well, as the month is named for the Roman god Mars, but the name for the month in Latin is 'Martius'.
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1569: WLAN in German Apr 1, 2019

In English 'WIFI', is a common term but it ultimately doesn't stand for anything except 'wireless', but even so the same word is used in a plethora of languages from Swedish to Korean. In German however, the equivalent term is 'WLAN', which is an acronym, but not a German one. Instead, it comes from 'wireless local area network', which is still English, but it just so happens that while German term is a loan word, it is the less common one, both within English and across languages. In German, WLAN would translate to 'kabellose Netzverbindung', but that doesn't abbreviate as well apparently.

1568: Metonymy Mar 31, 2019

While it's true that sometimes streets have been used as a sort of nickname for a larger entity, such as with Wall Street as discussed yesterday, this phenomenon has a much larger scope. This is called 'metonymy', from Greek, literally 'changing the name', and it can happen to just about anything. Some common examples include 'suit' for a businessmen, and 'The Pentagon' for the United States Department of Defense. These could be classified as synonyms, because in effect that is what is going on, but these are specifically from something that has direct connotation to the original word, but is related to something more acute, like in these cases outfit or location. If you have any others, include it in a comment.

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1567: scotland yard Mar 30, 2019

The name for the London police force headquarters as 'Scottland Yard' is so culturally significant that even when the building was moved, it was called 'New Scotland Yard'. Indeed, it was only the location of the former headquarters that the name came to be in the first place, as even though the address was officially 4 Whitehall Place, the public entrance was on on a street called 'Great Scotland Yard', and many people applied the name thereafter. This is a similar process as happened with Wall Street in New York City connoting the whole financial district.
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1566: On Contractions Mar 29, 2019

Most English contractions make sense how they came to be, even if a vowel might change a bit from something like "do" to "don't". However, with the exception of 'won't, which is a jarring contraction of will+not (even if historically it was woll+not) this only covers contractions that are also then able to be split apart again, unlike words like 'howdy' from "how do you do?", or 'goodbye' from "G-d be with you". Nevertheless, one that makes arguably less sense than "won't" but still is parsable is "dasn't" from 'dare not'. In this case, the extra S comes from "he dares not", but "dasn't" can be used alongside any pronoun, including 'I' and 'you'.
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1565: Alphabetization in Chinese Mar 28, 2019

Alphabetization is a prevalent and in some cases expected form of organization, but for some peoples this is not possible. Most languages are standardly written using an alphabet—or an alphabet-like system—but for iconographic writing systems like that of hanzi in Chinese or kanzi in Japanese, this can be trickier. In this case, the so-called 'radical and stroke' system is used, in which a certain word will be understood to have a base common to multiple words called a radical. However, these radicals are not always easy to discern, and don't necessarily bear much significance in the individual words. After that the number of pen-strokes are counted and that is how the words are organized thereafter, but there is no regard for which types of strokes necessarily, so it is not as easy to quickly scan for something.
Here's a Word Theory about this sort of topic: https://www.patreon.com/posts/why-chinese-is-21530910

1564: Black and Schwartz Mar 27, 2019

The word 'black' is strange not only because it is related to the words 'blanc' and 'blanco' meaning 'white', but also because it is not similar to that of most other Germanic languages. For instance, Dutch has 'zwart', Danish has 'sort', and German has 'schwartz', but English isn't totally left out in this regard. In some older or dialectal forms of English, 'swart' meaning dark—albeit not quite jet-black—and the more widespread though still not particularly common 'swarthy' meaning 'dark skinned'. Indeed, Old English had a word that sounded like this, so 'black' is something of a black sheep here.
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1563: Dictionaries and Lexicography Mar 26, 2019

Dictionaries and wordbooks have been around for thousands of years, perhaps beginning with the Sumerians, but these were usually bilingual. However, these often were just lists of word, rather than to include definitions; this is true also of the earliest English dictionary. Indeed, dictionary making only became a science, lexicography, in the 20th century, when the study of how words are used—and not just the fact that people use them—became not only more standardized, but also expectations for lexicographers to study etymology, comparative linguistics, and phonetics increased.

1562: ladybug and ladybird Mar 25, 2019

The insect known scientifically as Hippodamia convergens, or more commonly just 'ladybug' or 'ladybird', or in the past 'ladycow' and 'ladyfly' has a number of names, often relating to other animals. Indeed, the only unifying part is 'lady-', which comes from the Virgin Mary. This might seem a little far fetched, but when compared to the German Marienkäfer—literally Mary-beetle—it should seem at least more common. As for the difference between the mostly American 'ladybug' and mostly British 'ladybird', the British form is older but it is not clear why the element in question is '-bird'. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

1561: Bias in Comparative Linguistics Mar 24, 2019

As mentioned in yesterday's post, comparative linguistics—or the method of comparing languages in order to understand the history of their developments—is not totally an exact science. This is particularly true because there is no standard or scale for seeing how languages will always change; one sound in one language can transform in a totally different way in another so the process can be described only after the fact. This means that looking for similarities in one language requires the linguist to have a good understanding of the whole language family, and if this is not the case there will be implicit bias.

1560: Proto-, Pre-, and Old in Practice Mar 23, 2019

In the field of historical linguistics, there are many terms to describe older forms, or hypothetical forms, of a language, but this is often as much convention as it is description. The qualifiers 'Proto-', 'Pre-' and 'Old' are often used to denote different stages of the development of languages, with the first referring to the oldest common ancestor of multiple languages, and the other two denoting older forms of a specific language, but with 'Old', as in 'Old English' more attestable. However, there is no exact science when it comes to predicting older languages, and sometimes these definitions don't totally hold, as in 'Old Norse' and Proto-Norse', which are both attestible. 
For more on Historical linguistics, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8wxfur1HwI&t=5s

1559: ogre and orc Mar 22, 2019

As mentioned in yesterday's post, the term for 'ogre' comes from a Roman god of the underworld, Orcus. The similarity between [k] and [g] have been explained before, but notably this switch did not occur for the other descendent, 'orc'. It is likely, however, that this is because 'orc' was reinforced by the 'orcneas', or that it was taken from Latin or Italian more directly. Notably, the word only meant 'monster' in a generic way until Tolkien popularized the word with the specific meaning it has today in the Lord of the Rings.

1558: Names for the Roman Underworld Mar 21, 2019

In the Roman and Greek mythological tradition, many of words for the underworld taken from other names. For instance, in the Etruscan and Roman pantheon of gods, Orcus—which later gave its name to the modern 'ogre'—was a god who punished oath-breakers, and Pluto was the god of the underworld, and both of their names were often used to refer to the whole underworld. Moreover, later in history, Orcus' role was equated with Dīs Pater, and this name too was used to denote the underworld. These same trends existed in many other Roman traditions, and Greek ones as well.

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1557: Turkic Consonant Development Mar 19, 2019

In the series on Grimm's Law, it was discussed how there was a progression of certain consonants over time in Germanic languages, such as from [b] → [p] → [f], but this pattern is by no means a given. In Proto Turkic for instance, the [b] at the beginning of verbs would often become an [h] in modern Turkic languages. This is because these Turkic consonants are often contrasted between weakly articulated ones, called lenis consonants, and more strongly, clearly articulated ones, called fortis consonants. 
For more on Grimm's Law, see here: https://stonewordfacts.blogspot.com/searc

1556: What's the Oldest Classical Language? Mar 18, 2019

There are thousands of documents that are thousands of years old, but most of these aren't much use to people who aren't experts studying the language. This is not always the case, such as with some forms of Greek resembling the basics of Ancient Greek, but arguably the oldest language in continuous usage is Tamil, spoken in the south of India, with a literary tradition spanning thousands of years, with extensive, notably secular works, dating from as far back as the 5th century BCE. Some of this can still be roughly understood with Modern Tamil, making it a contestant for the oldest classical language in continuous use, unlike Hebrew.

1555: europe Mar 17, 2019

Asia and Africa were named for smaller regions in each continent, but Europe was named for a Phoenician Princess in Greek Mythology, Europa. Some have thought that the word is actually a composite of the Greek elements meaning 'wide' (εὐρύς) and 'eye' (ὤψ). This was not a reference to the eyes of the inhabitants, however, but was more of an expression denoting the idea of expansive, sort of like the phrase "as far as the eye can see". There have also been connections drawn to a Semitic root meaning 'West', or evening (i.e. the place where the Sun sets), such as the Hebrew 'Ma'arav' (West) and 'maariv' (evening). This is also where 'Magreb', a large region of Northwest Africa comes from. This all is more hypothetical, but it is bolstered by the fact that 'Asia' and its namesake 'Anatolia' comes from a word meaning [land of the] East, not only in Greek but also Semitic languages like Hebrew and Assyrian.
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1554: chaperon Mar 16, 2019

When we think of the word ‘chaperon’ today, it is will almost certainly refer to a person, but this was not always the case. Indeed, even in an old-fashioned, dated sense of the word denoting a person who would look after one woman in particular to make sure she didn’t do anything deviant, this refers to a person. However, in he Middle Ages and onwards, the word simply denoted a type of hood with shoulder covering, that was quite fashionable. Over time the sense of being covered and protected transferred to a person.

1553: schnapps Mar 15, 2019

English has a lot of words for alcohol, spirits, booze, liquors or whatever you want to call it, but at least one was lost over time due to specificity. In English, 'schnapps' refers to a particular type of liquor sweetened with fruits and other natural ingredients. However, in many other Germanic languages, it simply refers to any type of liquor. This is because the word 'schnapps' comes from the same root as 'snap', and has the same meaning as 'dram', as in a dram of liquor. 
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1552: Birds of a Feather Mar 14, 2019

The phrase “birds of a feather flock together” Has been around for a very long time. It can be accounted for and examples from the 16th century, but another times it would appear as this “byrdes of on kynde and color flok and flye allwayes together”. However, some translations of Plato include this phrase, so it could be even older in some form or another. In any case, the line relates ‘feather’ to the whole image of a bird, but rhymes better than ‘kind and color'.