Celtic, Etymology, Old English Emmett Stone Celtic, Etymology, Old English Emmett Stone

1653: mare and march Jun 24, 2019

The word 'mare' dates back to Old English as a feminine word for 'horse'. Today, it means denotes a female horse but Old English had 3 grammatical genders, and 'mere' (mare) was merely the feminine equivalent for 'mearh' (horse). That word has since been usurped by 'horse', which also existed in Old English. Therefore, the Welsh word 'march' meaning 'stallion'—with no female equivalent—is one of its closest cognates, certainly outside of Germanic languages. See more on 'mare' in 'nightmare'.

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1652: Fish with Hellish Names Jun 23, 2019

While there are 'angelfish', in the scientific names of many other seedwellers, there are references to Hell. Indeed, it is known that the ichthyologist (studier of fish) Carl Leavitt Hubbs had a penchant for doing this, such as with the 'blind swamp eel', which bares the scientific name 'Ophisternon infernale', and was originally 'Pluto infernale', both words for Hell in Latin. Moreover, this is even more obvious in the genus for widemouth blindcats, a type of catfish, is 'Satan eurystomus'.

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1651: Productivity of 'pittance' Jun 22, 2019


English has more words than any other language, but no matter what metric you use for that, it could have more. A number of words (and other elements) have lost a great deal of productivity, and while this will often lead to total disappearances, if you look carefully you may find traces. For instance, ‘pittance’, which now only relates to money, or lack thereof, comes from ‘pity’, meaning “something that is pitiful”. If this were to be used outside of the context of money this would not make sense anymore however.
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1650: picnic Jun 21, 2019


The word ‘picnic’ has undergone a number of changes over the centuries, both in what is means, and how it appeared. In early printed works containing this word, it referred not to people eating outside, as it usually does today, but a restaurant meal to which people brought their own wine: a ‘BYOB’ of the 17th century in some ways. It also was at one time synonymous with what we might call a ‘potluck’ today; many linguists believe that the ‘pic-‘ was in reference to picking things out. It only gained the connotations to the outdoors after the French revolution (then spelt ‘pique-nique), when the once-private public parks became open. The latter used to be believed to come from ‘nique’ meaning ‘unimportant (thing)’, but most now believe it came from ‘niche’ (‘to place’), and changed over time to rhyme with ‘pique’, evidence by the phrase “pique une niche” (“pick a place”).
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1649: Luso- for Portugal Jun 20, 2019

Some combining forms for countries make immediate sense, like 'Austro-' for Austria or 'Franco-' for France, and some are less obvious, like 'Hiberno-' for Ireland. Portugal has another, 'Luso-', which is not immediately obvious; you may know it better from the phrase 'Lusophone (countries)' i.e. Portuguese-speaking. Like with 'Hiberno-', it is different now because it comes from Latin; the Roman province which included modern-day Portugal (as well as some of Spain) was called 'Lusitania'. This was also the namesake of one of the most famous sunken ships.

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Numbers&Numerals Emmett Stone Numbers&Numerals Emmett Stone

1648: Origin of ∞ Jun 19, 20109

The infinity symbol ∞ may appear to have been chosen as it loops, and therefore doesn't have an end, but this wouldn't be the full story. The first time it was published in math was 1655 by John Wallis, though it was used in Christian symbolism long before then. There are a number of theories as to why ∞ came to be, including that it looks like the Greek letter ω—the final letter in the alphabet—and that it looks like the Roman numeral for 1,000 (i.e. many), which is now thought of as an M, but in the medieval period was written curved almost like a sideways Theta θ, or even just CIƆ. In the former case, ω is used for certain sets in set-theory, and many cultures have used big numbers to signify 'countless' (like 'myriad') so both theories are sensible really.

See more about symbols of infinity here.

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1647: Upside-down א in Set-Theory Jun 18, 2019

Certain letters, such as X,S,E, and B are horizontally symmetrical, but only in the right font. This may appear true of the Hebrew א, but it isn't, especially in serif-font. This would be a mostly pointless observation were it not the case that early math-books about set-theory included the Aleph—notating cardinal sets of infinity—upside-down for a long time. Some of this might be chalked up to a lack of knowledge from the printers, but also the monotype for א used in printing presses was often created upside down. See another post about א in set-theory posted today (and much more) while supporting Word Facts.

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1646: Are Treadmills Mills? Jun 17, 2019

Windmills and watermills create power, and even peppermills create something, but treadmills generally draw power in order to run. In spite of the current discrepancy, they too started as a power-creating mill. In 19th century prisons, treadmills of the time looked more like elliptical machines, with steps on a wheel to be rotated, and these were very effective power-creation tools. Industrial Britain and to a lesser extent America relied on them to generate power with free labor. In those days, they really were mills as we might think of a mill now, both in shape and in function, but they were later outlawed as a cruel form of punishment, and were later remodelled for exercise in the mid-20th century.
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1645: Language of Those who Avoided Colonization Jun 16, 2019

Colonization, whether medieval or modern, will likely have an effect on the language of the colonized, but this is not why many never-colonized places have little linguistic influence. In Bhutan, a country which has never been colonized, the official language is Dzongkha. This language is related to Tibetan, but will feature influence from the totally unrelated Nepali, which is spoken by some in Bhutan, but mainly Nepal, where the territory has never been colonized either. That said, the influence is minor—Dzongkha and other Bhutanese languages are pretty Tibetan—but the nations are not easily traverse due to mountainous terrain, and Bhutan especially has a weak economy, and does not have much trade with its neighbors. All of these other factors could play a role in language development, but often do not.

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1644: French in Parliament of England Jun 15, 2019

It is hard—though not impossible—to overstate the influence of French on the English language. While French was spoken by the ruling minority, even Englishmen began to learn it after some time. In fact, right after his conquest of England, William the Conqueror established a council that would become the Parliament. It operated in French for nearly 300 years (AD 1066-1362), and even in the 14th century, this was thought by some to merely be rebellious to the French, with whom they were at war, rather than a permanent change.

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1643: Parasitic -B Jun 14, 2019

Although certain silent letters in English are normal, like a terminal E, others, like 'pterodactyl's' P, or even 'thumb's' B draw some more attention. This terminal B in many words is a remnant of something that was originally pronounced, such a in 'tomb'. The problem is that it is [m] is so similar a sound and these types of sounds at the end of the word anyway are often not aspirated, so not pronouncing a [b] makes little difference. In other words like 'thumb', the B was never pronounced even in Old English, but it got attached due to association to other words like 'dumb'. This is occasionally called a parasitic -b.
See more on 'thumb' here.

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1642: PIE root of thumb Jun 13, 2019

The word 'thumb' and 'tumor' have a distant etymological relation, but many other languages no longer share this root too. 'Thumb' is from Old English, but 'tumor' comes from Latin meaning 'to swell'. Indeed the Latin, Greek, Sanskrit words etc. for 'thumb' are each very different looking, but each of those languages, and many other Indo-European languages have that share this root and mean totally different things, like the Greek 'τύμβος' meaning 'burial mound, or the Sanskrit तुम्र (túmra), 'thick'. Each of these have different definitions, but they all relate to the same sorts of things: unevenness or swelling.
See more on 'thumb' here.
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1641: Productivity of -Er: beetle Jun 12, 2019

The historical suffix '-le' can be used to form appliances, as mentioned yesterday, but it can also be used to form the words for animals. For instance, 'beetle' has this historical suffix, but it has no relation to the vegetable 'beet'. Instead, it comes from 'bite'. Really, this suffix meant something along the lines of what '-er' means today, thus the equivalent now would be 'biter': in Old English though, it was 'bitula'. This equivalence does not work as clearly with the examples given yesterday, 'thimble' and 'bridle'—in Modern English 'thumb-er' and 'bite-r' again—but '-er' can also used to form appliances etc..
See yesterday's post for more.

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1640: bridle and thimble Jun 11, 2019

Both 'bridle' and 'thimble' have the suffix '-le' which historically was used to form the name of appliances. In the case of 'bridle', this comes from the 'bit' put into the horse's mouth. While the word would have originally been something like 'bittle', it has since changed into something that could not exist without the historical suffix and still be meaningful. In the case of 'thimble', again, the word has changed a slightly since the initial form, which came from 'thumb'. There will be more on this tomorrow.
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1639: Mongolian Writing Jun 10, 2019

Standardization of a language is usually seen as a progressive step in cementing history and increasing intelligibility, but this is not permanent. Classical Mongolian was standardized starting in the 17th century, but fell between Middle Mongolian and Modern Mongolian, so not only were the sounds rapidly changing making the older lettering system obsolete or inadequate, but this period was marked with great political changes. Classical Mongolian's orthography was highly standardized, unlike today, where there is some standardizations, but multiple writing systems are used, mostly Mongolian script or Cyrillic, or sometimes Chinese characters for the large Mongolian population in China. 
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1638: Easter and Pesach Jun 9, 2019

As discussed before, 'Easter' and 'Pesach' don't have etymological relations, but this is not true of the words for Easter in every language. In Greek, for instance, Pascha (Πάσχα) comes from the Aramaic 'Paskha' (פסחא), which itself comes from the Hebrew word that is Pesach. However, 'Easter' is thought to have come about lexically from the Germanic goddess 'Ēostre', but the only source that attests this is from St. Bede. Reconstructionist work of other Germanic languages have bolstered these claims, but it is still somewhat in question.

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1637: Shavuos and Pentecost Jun 8, 2019

Christian and Jewish holidays naturally have some relation in terms of dates—though often not in purpose—and this weekend is one such example. This weekend fall the holidays of Shavuos (שָׁבוּעוֹת) and Pentecost (Πεντηκοστή), which both are marked from the number of days after Pesach and Easter respectively. However, unlike with Pesach and Easter, which have no etymological similarities in English (though they do in Greek), Shavuos and Pentecost both are named for time. In the former case, the word literally means 'weeks' as the holiday falls 7 weeks after the second night of Pesach (50 days from the first night), and in the latter case 'Pentecost' means 'fiftieth', as part of a phrase meaning 'fiftieth day', as it is the 50th day after Easter. Have a happy holiday!
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1636: US State Abbreviations (LITW 9) Jun 7, 2019

As can be seen in this map of US women's suffrage from 1919, the state abbreviations are not what they are today. In fact, there were no official abbreviations until 1963, though the post office still accepted many common ones. Moreover, the problem was not that there needed to be clearer abbreviations necessarily, but to make sure that there are was enough room for the postcodes and city-names together: up to 23 characters. Initially, there was also a conflict with the US Government Printing Office (GPO) and the Coast Guard's respective abbreviations; the GPO adopted the Post Office standard, but the Coast Guard has not, which leads to some discrepancies.

For more Linguistics In the Wild: check out this link: LITW

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1635: fatigue Jun 6, 2019

Though fatigue means 'tiredness', this is not what is meant in the phrase 'military fatigues'. These both come from the same French word, but both of these nouns have very different connotations today. In French 'fatigue' has always meant 'weariness', so the continued sense of this is not surprising, but this then applied to occupational, and in particular military labors in general, and then uniforms later on in the 18th century. Interestingly, the words 'weary' and 'wear' appear to have this same relationship, especially in light of the phrases "worse for wear" and "wear and tear", but the two are not related.
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1634: glove Jun 5 2019

As discussed yesterday, the word for 'glove' in many Germanic and Romantic languages is 'want', with language-specific twists. However, English's is obviously different, but it still belongs to it's own family of related words. 'Glove' dates back to Old English, but goes back all the way to Proto-Indo-European, from 'ga-' which signified collections, and 'lāp-' meaning 'flat', though not related to the English 'lap'. In Scots the word is 'gluve', and the Icelandic 'glófi'. Even in Middle English the word for a palm of the hand was 'lofe'.
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