2202: harbor and harbinger Dec 25, 2020

The words 'harbor' and 'harbinger' are related, but the meanings have since changed overtime. While a harbinger today is anyone who acts as a forerunner to something else, and a harbor is a place along the coast to keep boats, the original meaning of both regarded personal lodging. A harbinger was someone who was sent ahead of an army or noble to arrange the lodgings or even could refer to the innkeeper himself. A harbor used to have a more general meaning referring to any sort of shelter but especially that of an army, from the Old English 'here-beorg' (i.e. like 'burg') meaning 'army city'. This is also where the 'g' comes from in 'harbinger', with the 'n' coming on the same pattern as 'message-messenger'.

2201: farthing Dec 24, 2020

In old British currency a farthing was a fraction of a penny, but also happens to be somewhat related to a 'riding' as in the divisions of land in Yorkshire. This is because one can understand 'farthing' as 'fourth-ing' (i.e. 1/4 of a penny or in other words 1 / 960th of a pound) from the Old English 'fēorðing', and a 'riding' is from 'trithing' (i.e. a third) in Old English. As a point of information, there were different types and subdivisions of a farthing, including 'third farthings' (1/12 of a penny) and 'quarter farthings' (1/16 of penny). Farthings also referred to divisions of land in places like Gloucestershire.

2200: thing Dec 23, 2020

The Icelandic parliament is called the Alþingi, sometimes anglicized as 'Althing' can illuminate some of the function of 'thing' in English. In this case the word is from the Old Norse 'al-' (general) and 'þing / thing' meaning 'assembly'. While this precise meaning has been lost in English it is still present in other Germanic languages like Danish/Swedish/Norwegian 'ting', the German 'Thing' and so on. Still, the modern sense in English comes from this root, and once referred to the meeting, and then later the matter discussed in a meeting, and then just any general matter; this process happened elsewhere as with the German 'Ding'.

2199: haberdashery Dec 22, 2020

The word 'haberdashery' today relates to all sorts of wares including fabrics, hats, beads, or stationery. The etymology of this word isn't really clear either, but certainly even in the writings from the 14th century this inventory was already quite diverse. It is even found in Canterbury Tales apparently derived from the Norman 'hapertas' (probably small wares), but this itself has an unclear origin, and some dispute its meaning claiming it was specifically just 'fabric' or specifically a merchant of hats.

2198: scavenger Dec 21, 2020

The idea of a scavenger, be it regarding an animal or person, is not a positive one, and initially denoted a particular type of tax collector. Although 'scavenger' is older than 'scavage' (noun)—note the -n-, same as in message-messenger—'scavage' was a tax on goods sold by nonresidence in order to protect local prices. This scavenger had a secondary job of keeping the streets clean and hence the modern sense of collecting debris and refuse. This word is also related to the English 'show' insofar as these scavengers would have to take note of goods and detritus in the area.

2197: Biblical Hebrew has No Tenses Dec 20, 2020

Biblical Hebrew contains no verb tenses, a fact which is often misunderstood. Hebrew did of course have a way of expressing the action—just not time—in verbs through aspect. Unlike, in English however wherein aspect only can express Perfect (i.e. that the action is completed) and the Imperfect (i.e. that the action is incomplete), using the prefix וְ (v-) known as 'vav', other verbs could signal sequence. In other words, there is morphology to indicate that the action came in sequence (after) another whether that is in actual time or simply conceptual.

Somewhat counterintuitively sounding, the Sequential Perfect expresses similar meaning to the Imperfect and vice versa, but this is because if a Perfect verb is followed by a verb in the Sequential Perfect, it would have to have the sense of ongoing action. For instance”I read a book and I ate an apple” (both Perfect) does not actually show the sequence of time how “I read a book and I am eating an apple“ would and hence the Sequential Perfect looks almost the same but acts like an Imperfect.

Of course, there were ways of expressing the concepts that English uses tense to describe using other words and structures, but it is technically wrong to use the term 'tense'. This use of the וְ prefix is known as the Vav Consecutive form. This is distinct from the Vav Conjunctive, which merely expresses the same meaning as the English 'and'. This is why often Biblical translations will often write 'and' even at the beginning of sentences or indeed chapters. Modern Hebrew and even Mishnaic Hebrew does employ tenses, but these developed closer to the Indo-European system.

2196: pure Dec 19, 2020

It is not uncommon for simple, fairly basic, more conceptual terms to have deep historical roots, but this isn't really true of 'pure'. Indeed, this word is found as a surname and as part of a compound before an adjective in its own right. Granted, that compound was 'purlamb' and referred to a lamb without any sort of physical defect. This word is from a Romantic root without much difference in meaning, and indeed the Proto-Indo-European one *peue- doesn't have too many semantically deviant derivatives. This replaced the earlier Old English 'hlutor', 'smǣte', and 'scǣre' which had some of the same sort of moral and genetic connotations etc. but 'pure' did not immediately have these either.

2195: Positive Names with Negative Etymologies Dec 18, 2020

There are a lot of names out there which sound as if the meanings would be undesirable as a personal name, like 'Delores' (Sorrows). In this case it comes as a moniker for the Virgin Mary, and likewise so do other names like Mercedes (Mercy), Soledad (Loneliness), or Luz (Light), though of course not all of these are so negative. Somewhat ironically then the nicknames 'Lola' and particularly 'Lolita' come from Delores, but these were once seen to have a more erotic connotations, with popular references found in the 19th and 20th century.

On that note, should anyone find a reason 'Delilah' is so popular considering especially that story is fairly commonly known, or any other stigmatized names, please write in to the Suggestions/Questions page:

2194: mood Dec 17, 2020

With long winter nights, many people are bound to get moody, but that said 'mood' used to have a much stronger connotation. Indeed, while many of the uses it had are similar to those of today, essentially meaning 'frame of mind', or even more strongly than today 'pride' or 'power' and 'violence', its uses don't end there. The Old English 'mod' meant 'mind; intellect', and would be used as a translation for the Latin 'animus' (spirit) and 'mens' (mind). The senses back then were not only broader but also used in compounds like 'modcræftig' (intelligent). From that now, while 'mood' on its own is fairly neutral, other connotations as in 'moody' or 'to be in a mood' are more negative. Keep in mind also that this was influenced by the use of 'mood' as it is found in grammar or music indicating a class of functions but that that meaning actually comes from an entirely separate etymology.

2193: Why the Spelling for the Maccabees is Controversial Dec 16, 2020

An important source to understanding the story behind the holiday of Chanuka is from The Book of the Maccabees, but exactly how to spell 'Maccabees' in Hebrew is unclear. These days, it is 'מכבים' but irrespective of that it might be surprising there is the ambiguity at all. This is actually because the oldest known records are in Greek, where is it universally Μακκαβαῖοι (Makkabaioi), despite the fact the entire subject matter focuses on fighting the Greeks militarily and culturally. It is unclear whether the name originates, as is most commonly understood, as an acronym written on their flags from מי־כמכה באלם יי (mi chamocha ba'elim [Hashem]) meaning "who is like You among the heavens [G-d]?". The name could also come as a reference to the military strength, with [מקבי[ם‎ meaning 'hammer' in Aramaic. Keep in mind that while this is often taken to be a family name, as with Yehuda Maccabee, their actual dynastic name being חשמונאים‎ ([the] Hasmonaim).

2192: Plurals that aren't Plural Dec 15, 2020

This is the final post of Pluralization Week. To see the whole collection together, visit this collection.

Notional agreement, also discussed under the broader label of synesis, is a phenomenon in which a grammatical construction will take on number or gender when relevant, which is not strictly grammatical, but which is otherwise implicit from the concept. For instance, in English plurals are often treated as singular or vice versa depending on how it is considered. Take for instance the seemingly contradictory grammar:

The British government are divided.

Great Britain is a wealthy nation.

This is especially common when there is something that distances the subject from the verb, such as:

*The number of people moving to big cities are increasing

*Five hundred dollars is a lot of money

2191: Languages without Plural Dec 14, 2020

While languages have multiple different types of pluralization in their morphology, some have none. Indeed, across the Austronesian languages there is a great deal of diversity in this matter, with Sursurunga having 5 and Indonesian having ostensibly 0. This is not to say languages like this, especially common around East Asia and the Pacific, have no way of expressing plural obviously, but that it will either be done through a certain amount of context as with the English 'sheep-sheep', with specific determiners as with the Maori

te ngeru (the cat)

ngā ngeru (the cats)

where the nouns stay the same, but the determiners are different. In other cases, as in Indonesian, there will be some of these markers but if not, there will be reduplication,

Kucing (cat)

Kucing-kucing (cats). This is certainly a syntactic way to express the plural, but lacks a specific morpheme.

2190: Plural as the Default Dec 13, 2020

Usually, plurals are formed from the singular, but this is not always the case. Exceptionally, in Welsh for instance there are words for which the plural is the base and singulars are formed off of that. This is on top of the fact Welsh has plurals where no non-affixed form exists: ‘merlen’ (a pony) and ‘merlod’ (ponies), but no *merl. Now, take the examples of

Llygod (mice, pl.) but llygoden (mouse, sg.)

Erfin (turnips, pl.) but erfinen (turnip sg.)

These have the same singular ending as with ‘merlen’ but the plural form is indistinguishable from a root, lacking any additional morphology. Keep in mind this is unlike languages like Latin or Finnish where endings indicate not only singular–plural, but also case. There is no particular reason why the singular will resemble the root if one would have to, but looking at how exceptional this is, it could be said to make intuitive sense. Celtic languages did once historically have cases which one could try to explain this with, but so did English, French, and many other such Indo-European languages where this does not happen.

2189: Massive and Numerative Plurals Dec 12, 2020

While some languages distinguish between paucal (unknown few) and greater plurals (unknown many), others have a massive plural and a numerative plural. To illustrate the difference—though keep in mind this does not exist in English—a massive plural implies indivisibility, such as using pluralization to discuss the "waters of the Indian Ocean". Of course in that example using ‘waters’ is not strictly necessary anyway so consider also that English distinguishes between ‘fish’ [singular], ‘fish’ [like a collective plural] and ‘fishes’ [like a divisible plural] i.e. ‘types of fish’. Languages that morphologically distinguish between massive plural and a numerative plural (unlike English) don’t necessarily have both, such as Welsh which has a separate singular, plural, and massive (collective) plural but not numerative per se. Because English has no productive way to distinguish mass nouns morphology, ostensibly singular nouns like ‘sand’ need to be disambiguated with whole phrases, in this case ‘grain of sand’. Slavic and Semitic languages etc. also distinguish certain qualities of massive plurals.

2188: Paucal, Trial, and Greater Plurals Dec 11, 2020

In addition to the dual number, another number besides simply singular and plural is the paucal, which crops up in a number of different languages such as many Oceanic languages, Serbo-Croatian, some Cushitic languages, and Hopi. This is used specifically for a small but unspecified number; in English one would have to use other words like ‘a few’ rather than using morphology. In other languages too there is the trial, used for specifically three objects. There are however, some languages that rather than distinguishing between small numbers distinguish between greater ones. The greater plural—though all grammatical numbers are equally good ☺—is a syntactic category of some languages including Mele-Fila, a Polynesian language, that distinguishes large quantities, relative how much would be expected. This does allow some room for subjective understanding how much is 'a lot' for a given word, but for instance it might be used when discussing thousands of flowers in a park, or just a handful of luxury cars all together. Of course, this distinguishes from the paucal which is just as subjective. Moreover, Mele-Fila and these other languages with a greater plural will generally still use the plural for exact numbers. It should be noted that while this is a general overview, each language will treat these differently, such as Sursurunga which has a ‘lesser-plural’ in its pronoun system, once thought to be a trial number, but actually it can refer to either 3 or 4 people. Indeed Sursurunga has some of the most complicated numerical system for its grammar, distinguishing between singular, dual, (aforementioned) paucal, greater paucal, and plural.

2187: Hebrew and Arabic Dual Dec 10, 2020

The dual—a distinct plural for 2 of something—is common around many languages of the world, but there are differences in how its used. In Hebrew and Arabic, especially in the older forms of those languages, use of the dual seems compulsory, but this is not universally so. In Arabic it is simpler that any word, regardless of gender, will simply take ان‎ (-ān) or the more modern ين‎ (-ain) but this is being lost in some dialects. In Hebrew this is more complicated, with several different factors like gender and semantics factoring in. Often this is distinguished between the masculine plural ־ים‎ (-im) and the dual ־יים‎ (ayim), such as

יום / יומיים / ימים

‎(yōm / yomạyim / yāmīm) for 'day', ‘two days', and 'days' but often there is no written distinction, especially for masculine nouns, as with עין / עיניים‎ (ayin / ʿēnạyim) for 'eye(s)'. Indeed, in Modern Hebrew, there is no productive use of the dual, but words for time and body parts often still retain it. Notably, in Hebrew, only nouns can have dual, so adjectives, verbs, etc. that need to correspond with a dual will usually use the standard plural.

2186: How Pluralization Can Affect Meaning: 'Oczy' vs. 'Oka' Dec 9, 2020

While pluralization may often be merely a necessary aspect of a language's grammar, sometimes it can have an impact on the semantics too. The Polish noun 'oko' means both 'eye' but also 'oil droplet' and while the plural for the first meaning is 'oczy', for the second it is 'oka'. The reason for this distinction is ostensibly due to the so-called dual number, a form of plural used specifically for things which come in pairs. That is why also even if it is more than 2 eyes, or exactly 2 oil droplets being referred to, the same plural forms are used. Indeed, while the dual is used primarily for things which are considered generally to come as pairs but in Polish and also Russian certain forms of nouns will have different forms for referring to 2, 3, or 4 of that noun, but this extension is limited to the genitive or nominative plural for Polish. Uses for the dual beyond this will be the topic tomorrow.

This post is the start of Pluralization Week, to celebrate the 6th anniversary of the blog.

2185: Words for 'Proud' Dec 8, 2020

The majority of Indo-European languages use the same basic pattern for words for 'proud', with both negative and positive senses. The pattern tends to be a compound with words for 'more' or 'over', and words for 'mood', 'thought' or sometimes 'appearances'. Some examples of this would include the Old English 'ofermodig' (over-moody) and 'heahheort (high-heart), or the Greek υπερήφανος 'hyperephanos' (over-appearing). In certain other cases there is a physical sense of being swollen or inflating such as the Welsh 'balch'.

6 Year Anniversary: Pluralization Week Tomorrow

To celebrate 6 years of Word Facts, 7 posts will be dedicated to the topic of pluralization, with all its quirks and variations.

2184: proud Dec 7, 2020

Pride is a good thing in moderation, but the notion that that word related to emotion at all is a later development in its history. It comes from the Old English 'prud' from the Latin 'prode' meaning 'excellent', 'advantageous' but also 'arrogant', which makes it related to 'improve' but also to 'prude'. In any case, while 'proud' has had the sense of "being excited by something" since the 13th century at least, the more moralistic sense of having a high opinion of oneself is only found in English and not in French or Latin, which might actually reflect what the Anglo-Saxons thought of the Norman invaders, and even in other Germanic languages it retained a meaning of 'brave; valiant'.