1971: Misunderstood Biblical Quotes May 8, 2020
There are a lot of biblical phrases that have made it into the modern English lexicon, including "there is nothing new beneath the Sun", "eye for an eye" and "salt of the earth", though these are often used in totally different ways. "Salt of the earth", mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew (5:13) is today often used to describe people who are base or simplistic, and as mentioned one, it is often and perhaps increasingly used as an insult, but biblically and up until recently it refers to people who are moral.
Moreover, people often attribute the quote "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" to Gandhi, but given the full quote from (שמות) Exodus 22:23-26:
"But if other damage ensues the penalty shall be life for life, eye for eye...when the man strikes the eye of his servant...and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye". This is therefore not literally one eye as punishment for one eye, but an metaphor for punishment that is equivalent to the crime.
"There is nothing new beneath the Sun" is basically used as pessimistically as it it used in Ecclesiastes (קהלת), which paints a fairly bleak picture of life anyway.
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1970: polite and politics May 7, 2020
Because English lexicon is such a hodgepodge of other languages', it can be easy to assume that certain etymologies might be related, but one should be careful. For instance 'politics', and 'polite' have a lot in common phonetically, but not only are they not related they are from different languages. 'Politics' is from Greek meaning "of the state", related to '(metro)politan, while 'polite' is from Latin meaning 'smooth', related to 'polish'.
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1969: Tolkien Using Real Languages in Lord of the Rings pt 2 May 6, 2020
J.R.R. Tolkien was a professor of Germanic philology, and his knowledge of Old English, Middle English, and other ancient Germanic languages like Gothic and Old Icelandic. These featured heavily in the world-building of the Lord of the Rings, including with regards to Rohirric (of Rohan) and Westeron (of the Shire), with both personal names and other words that were based off of Old and Modern English respectively. Moreover, Dwarvish was based off of Old Norse, and so on, as mentioned in yesterday's post.
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1968: Tolkien Using Real Etymology in Lord of the Rings pt 1 May 5, 2020
Tolkien may be popularly known writing Lord of the Rings, but he was also an Oxford professor of philology. In 1932 and 1934 he wrote papers detailing how the word Sigelwara (or 'Sigelhearwan') was the Old English word for Ethiopia, such as used in the Junius Manuscript, a codex of Old English biblical poetry. As he outlines it, it literally means 'sun' (sigel) 'burnt' (hearwan, related to 'hearth'). His focus on the word does not end there though, since in the Lord of the Rings he named one of the peoples from Far Harad, a continent to the South, the 'Haradwaith' from the same 'hearwan' as in Old English.
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1967: Transitivity in Verb Pairs May 4, 2020
People talk about irregular verbs usually with regards to tense, but this isn't the whole story by any means. English is not known for its inflectional morphology, i.e English words don’t change much; we add –s for 3rd person singular and –ed for past tense, but that’s about it for verbs. However, in the case of verb paradigms like with rise–raise, the difference is not tense at all, but of transitivity. What this means basically is that 'raise' can take a direct object such as 'dumbbell' in "I will raise this dumbbell over my head" but this is not possible with 'rise', which is considered intransitive, meaning someone cannot be said to rise something. Other examples include lay–lie and sit–set.
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1966: Drawbacks to Looking for Cultural Connection with Multiple Definitions May 3, 2020
It's sometimes possible to get cultural information just by looking at connotations or multiple definitions a word can have. For instance, the Hebrew זקן (zaken) as a noun means 'beard' but also 'sage' (as in a person, not the spice), and as an adjective means 'elderly'. However, one should be careful not to put too much stock into them, as the Hebrew root כבש (K-B-Sh) leads to 'pickle' and 'highway', respectively כבוש (kbosh) and כביש (kvish). If you can discern a connection between the two, leave your best guess in the comments.
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1965: Swiss Endonym: eidgenosse May 2, 2020
German is spoken commonly in Switzerland, but the in name for what would go on to become the country 'Eidgenossenschaft' only exists in the political context of Swiss political history. This is often translated as 'federation' or 'confederacy' [confederation], but German has other words for those: Bundesrepublik/Verband and (Kon)Föderation. Instead, this actually means "oath fellowship", and because this term is basically exclusive to Switzerland, one old term for a Swiss citizen was Eidgenosse, or literally 'oath-fellow'.
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1964: A Modern Phrase for an Ancient Language May 1, 2020
How does one create slang or greetings for a language which for centuries was only used liturgically? Indeed, many students of ancient languages may note that while they may be able to read about battles and epic poems, they can't make small talk in them. Modern Hebrew, which was revitalized in the 19th century, faced this problem to some extent, and while the grammar for any new words was to be based off of Semitic roots, the phrase "ma nishma" (מה נשמע) uses Hebrew words but is based semantically off the Yiddish "vos hert zikh" (װאָס הערט זיך). These both have the same effect of 'how are you?" but literally mean "what are you hearing?".
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1963: linchpin, not linch Apr 30, 2020
There is a no word 'linch' despite the existence of the compound 'linchpin'. Indeed, the fact that it is around in the way it is comes from that there is no 'linch'. In Old English, the origin 'lynis' meant 'axle', hence a linchpin holds the wheel to the axle, but it could also mean the whole axletree. It is not to say that 'linchpin' is therefore not etymologically redundant, but with the introduction of 'axle' from Old Norse 'ǫxultré' it only survived from the compound.
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1962: margarine: People Could Probably Believe it's not Butter Apr 29, 2020
Margarine can contain lots of things, from vegetable to animal fats, but almost certainly not real pearls. Nevertheless, the name comes from the Greek μαργαρίτης (margarítēs), meaning ‘pearl’. This was in reference to the color of the crystals of various esters which is how it was made originally. This is especially clear in older uses, which would use 'margarine' to refer to any solid form of any fat, including human or animal fat, which is much more believable that it isn't butter.
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1961: heyday Apr 28, 2020
When one refers to something, or someone's heyday, this is used to denote the height of success in some way or another, but this only even became a noun recently. Indeed, this used to be an exclamation—not much unlike 'hooray'—as is still kept with the interjection 'hey', though the two are probably not related except for syllabic simplicity. It is generally held that 'heyday comes as a variation of 'high day', and other similar phrases from Dutch and German support this.
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1960: doctor (Noun and Verb) Apr 27, 2020
In these trying times, it is important to trust medical professionals. That said, there has always been a distrust of doctors, hence where the verb 'to doctor', as in 'to alter' comes from. 'Doctor' comes from Latin, but the verbal form is attested at least from 1509 meaning "to give someone a doctoral degree". This was originally not a negative idea at all, but by the 18th century it eventually took on the meaning of "change; disguise; forge".
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1959: Cognate Connotations Apr 26, 2020
English and German differ in many key ways, but share many lexical and cultural traits. For instance, the word 'heiß' in German is 'hot' in English—German [s] often is realized as [t] in English—but is doesn't share every connotation. 'Heiß', like 'hot' relates to physical temperature, and to physical attraction, but not to spice as it does in English. For that, Germans use 'scharf', which is related to 'sharp'.
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1958: Ñ in the USA Apr 25, 2020
English is by no means the only language lacking diacritic marks on its letters regularly, but for known for having plenty of loan words, or words that have different meaning depending upon the stress, it is strange. However, there are some exceptions, and especially with proper nouns. For instance, there are only 5 places in the USA which have an Ñ in their names, those being Cañon City, Colorado, La Cañada Flintridge, California; Española, New Mexico; Peñasco, New Mexico; and Cañones, New Mexico.
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1957: Cultural Differences in Alphabets Apr 24, 2020
Alphabets, and what is or isn't included therein, are just as if not more cultural than linguistic in many cases. For instance, English speakers do not consider any combinations of letters separate, even if they regularly make a distinct sound like SH for ʃ, but Spanish speakers do, considering LL, RR, and CH as distinct in the alphabet. Moreover, the Spanish Ñ was created as a sort of shorthand for a double-n, and as such it too is given its own spot in the alphabet. This shouldn't be too strange for even English speakers, since W was originally just a double-V (which was the same as U in Latin for a long time, hence the name), and it has its own place. However, this is not true in the Spanish alphabet for any vowels, and likewise the French Ç is not given its own spot in the French alphabet; it really comes down to history and culture.
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1956: pasta, paste, and pastry Apr 23, 2020
When we think of 'paste', most people probably associate that with a thick liquid made as a blend of ingredients, so the fact that the word is also related to the more solid 'pastry' and 'pasta' might come as a surprise. However, consider that both pastas and pastries must first begin as a dough and the connection becomes clearer. Its original meaning from the Latin 'pasta' was something closer to 'glue-mixture', and so thick liquid, doughs, pastes, or even 'pâte' (also from this root) were lumped in together.
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1955: John Hancock Apr 22, 2020
John Hancock's name is synonymous with signatures because his is the largest and most prominent on the US Constitution. This is no accident or act of impropriety, because in 1776, when the Constitution was signed, he was the president of Congress, though to be clear this job was not a precursor to the role of President of the USA, and is more comparable to the position of Speaker of the House or Senate Majority Leader in Congress today.
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1954: loot Apr 21, 2020
Lots of words relate to theft, stealing, robbery, burglary, and even one which already a few that meant "rob a place violently, especially in wartime": 'pillage', 'ransack', 'plunder'. Given this concept clearly a persistent one then, the fact that in the 18th century, at least by 1788 to be specific, English adopted another might then come as a surprise. However, the term 'loot' coming from the verb 'lūt', was adopted from a Hindustani language when the East India Company was conquering India. This verb was common enough, but gained more popularity from its use associated with other 19th century wars in China, Crimea, and India.
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1953: switzerland and portugal Apr 20, 2020
Many times, countries are named after the majority of the people who inhabit it like Slovakia, Kazakhstan, or Israel, but not always. In the case, of Switzerland or Portugal, both of these countries got their respective names from smaller cities within them, neither of which happen to be the national capital. 'Switzerland' comes from the town 'Schwyz', after a union between it and two other areas, Uri and Unterwalden, to form the Eidgenossenschaft (Confederacy), but the demonym 'Eidgenosse' did not catch on elsewhere as much as the older 'Schwytzer', and that stuck around into the formation of 'Switzerland'. Portugal's etymology is less clear, though it was certainly named for one of the seaports ('portus' in Latin), it is unclear which; at any rate, it isn't Lisbon, and one leading theory suggests it was the Roman Portus Cale named after the Gauls, which is nowadays Porto.
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1952: Bolivarian, and Other Republics Apr 19, 2020
There are lots of names for republics, such as Islamic Republics, (e.g. Afghanistan; Iran), Democratic Republics (e.g. Congo), so-called Democratic Republics (e.g. China; Bangladesh), People's Democratic Republics (e.g Laos) and many more qualifications, though these don't really have any specific meaning. Some countries will also officially use their own names, such as Argentine Republic or Portuguese Republic, but there is one country which uses neither description nor name: that of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This name for Venezuela was only adopted in place of Republic of Venezuela in 1999 to reflect the "Bolivarian Revolution", a socialist uprising, named after Simón Bolívar whose own liberal revolutions occurred some 190 years earlier.
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