2269: Elves in Given Names Mar 3, 2021

Although elves these days are not so culturally important these days as these used to be in ancient Germanic cultures, there still are remnants, especially in names. Alfred, Alvin Aubrey, Eldridge, and Oliver to name a few all come from the word 'ælf' (elf) with some other compound. In those names before, they are respectively Ælfræd (Elf-counsel), Ælfwine (Elf-friend) Alb(e)rada (elf-counsel), Ælfric (Elf-ruler) and Alfihar, (elf-army). Notably this makes Oliver unrelated to the French Olivier (olive-tree), though the French name did influence the spelling. Elves in Germanic mythology were small and malicious, hence why so many of those names have somewhat tough or even militaristic connotations. Share your friends named after elves.

More on elf-influence in English tomorrow.

2268: doubt and 2 Mar 2, 2021

Though it may not be too surprising that the word for ‘doubt’ is also related to words for ‘two’ including ‘duo’ and indeed ‘two, but keep in mind this replaced an earlier word with the same quality: Old English ‘twēo’ (doubt) from the same root as ‘two’. Likewise, the German word for doubt is ‘Zweifel’ which clearly has the root ‘zwei’ (two) in it. Moreover, the Latin root ‘dubitāre’, which led to the current English word is thought to come from habeō (I have), combined with the Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ “two” as in ‘holding two’ making the word seemingly even more literal, but actually the sense in Latin would be closer to ‘hesitate’.

Notably, the word ‘doubt’ in Middle English was not spelt with a B, but this was added later to correspond with the Latin root even though the Old French root, and the modern French derivative ‘douter’ (to doubt) aren’t spelt that way.

2267: How לחם‎ (Lechem) is Related to नान (Naan)

There is a Proto-Semitic reconstructed root *laḥm- which broadly would have meant food, but in many of its descendents like the Hebrew לחם‎ (lechem) and Aramaic לחמא (lachma) it came to mean bread. That said, the Arabic لَحْم‎ (laḥm) also comes from this root, but here it means 'meat'. It is clear it hasn't always though, because a derivative of this Arabic word is the somewhat distant sounding Middle Persian LHMA which becomes نان‎ (nân) in Persian. This did have closer form in other languages like the Old Armenian loanword նկան (nkan); in turn this root lead to the Hindi नान (nān) and Urdu نان‎ (nān): bread which came to English as 'naan'.

2266: cutler(y) Feb 28, 2021

The word 'cutler' and by extension 'cutlery' may come from the same root as 'cut', but only very distantly at best. These two terms originate with the Latin 'cultus'—not '*cutlus'—but eventually metathesized into the 'coutel'. The '-erie' suffix is is used in French to mean 'belonging to' such as 'bakery', or 'jewellery'.

2265: Disparity in Yiddish Use between Men and Women Feb 27, 2021

These days, more men speak Yiddish than women. In certain communities of course, everyone speaks Yiddish often monolingually (or along with being able to read Hebrew). Still, for those for whom it is a second language, because much of modern Yeshiva study—exclusively for men—is still taught in Yiddish while women's seminaries generally use Modern Hebrew, there is a notable disparity.

אַ פֿרײליכן פורים

2264: (Old) Blighty Feb 26, 2021

The nickname for England or Britain as 'Blighty' came as military slang, especially as used by the soldiers of the World Wars. In particular, it was used by those in the Indian army as an alteration of the Urdu bilāyatī meaning 'foreign' or often broadly just 'European', though the original Arabic meaning was not so specific and could be used to refer to any region or district. Today it is often used in England affectionately, but obviously stripped of its original meaning.

2263: alchemy & chemistry Feb 25, 2021

Alchemy is to chemistry as astrology is to astronomy.

For much of history each pair was basically considered the same, as both had mystical and occult elements associated with them, and indeed even the more so-to-speak scientific aspects of these disciplines were in service of the spiritual ones until fairly recently. This is actually where the sense of chemistry relating to romantic attraction comes in. The connection between 'astrology' and 'astronomy' is fairly obvious, but the etymological connection between 'alchemy' and 'chemistry' is obscured somewhat by Arabic, with the al- just being the Arabic definite article i.e. 'the'. Otherwise the words have the same roots—even though the exact root is the cause of some disagreement—and really just means 'science'. Indeed, in the 17th century both words had a reduction in meaning, having both related to the occult, natural philosophical, as well as what might be thought as chemistry today or even metallurgy. Now, 'alchemy' only kept the sense of the pursuit of transforming base metals into gold and similar processes.

2262: alchemy Feb 24, 2021

No one knows the precise origin of the word 'alchemy', but that doesn't mean we can't learn a lot from it. For one thing, although there is a principle in more modern words for Arabic loan words, this is a case wherein the Arabic (al-) meaning 'the' does not turn into 'au-' in French, even though it was borrowed into English from Old French from an earlier Arabic اَلْكِيمِيَاء‎ (al-kīmiyā). Beyond that, it is not quite certain. An even earlier in Greek χημεία (khēmeía) refers to a liquid mixture extracted from gold, not creating it, from a root meaning 'to pour', but many think it it originally Egyptian. At that, people aren't sure which word it would be, but the leading candidate seems to be Χημία (Khēmía), a name for Egypt itself literally meaning, 'black earth'. Indeed, as happens in many cases, the answer is likely influence from both sources, especially considering that there was a lot of cross-cultural contact in the Ancient world.

2261: Yiddish Masculine for Feminine Hebrew Loanwords Feb 23, 2021

Yiddish, a Germanic language, contains many Hebrew words with Hebrew plural forms, though it does not treat these the same as in actual Hebrew. For instance, the Yiddish form for both שבת (Shabbos) i.e. 'sabbath' and טלית‎ (tallis) '[prayer] shawl' use the masculine plural ending ־ים (-im) even though in Hebrew they both pluralize with the feminine ending ־ות (Modern -ot, or Yiddish -os). In truth, these actually are masculine, and just take usually-feminine endings due to phonological reasons and a little bit of chance. Thus there is the Yiddish שבתים (Shabbossim) but Hebrew שבתות (Shabbatot). Notably perhaps, שבת clearly shows up as masculine in the Bible but only in the singular.

שבת שבתון הוא לכם

"It [masc.] is a sabbath of complete rest for you all".

2260: stocks Feb 22, 2021

Stock markets these days might use some of the fastest computers out there, but the initial sense of the word 'stock' is directly related to trees with the Old English 'stoc' meaning 'trunk' or 'block'. Unsurprisingly too, it is related to the word 'stick'. Beyond that however, the connection between foliage and finance is unclear. It could be related to the idea of futures being an outgrowth or a stable foundation, being likened to branches though no one really knows. It could possibly be influenced by tally sticks used throughout the Ancient and Medieval world to keep records for taxes and other deals.

2259: mush Feb 21, 2021

Mush as an exclamation to motivate sled-dogs is obviously associated with the Far North, but is not from any Inuit Yupik language, probably. Generally the word is understood to come from French in the mid-19th century likely from an alteration of either 'marchez' or 'marchons', both being imperative forms of 'marcher' (advance; march). That said, it has also been influenced by Michif, which is a dominantly French language but with great influence from a number of various languages native to North America.

2258: Backronyms Feb 20, 2021

There are a number of words used today that are truly from acronyms, such as 'radar' ("radio detection and ranging") but there are many more that people believe to be from acronyms and aren't, like 'posh'. A term 'backronym' was coined to describe this phenomenon when people make an acronym out of a word which was not previously an acronym. This is sometimes used for folk etymology, but also for other reasons such as legal bills or organizations, such as the First Step Act which is technically an acronym for the otherwise quite awkward and cumbersome "Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person Act".

Write a comment with any other folk etymology backronyms you may know.

2257: ...Doe, ...Roe & Other Official Pseudonyms Feb 19, 2021

A recent post discussed the way in which generic aliases are used for legal protection or for uncertainty in identity, such as John Doe in many English speaking countries. Along with this are other variants like Jane Doe for women, Johnny Doe and Janie Doe for children, and Baby Doe for infants. Indeed, there are many variations to the -oe family, like Richard Roe and Jane Roe, though only the feminine version is common these days. In investigations with lots of press attention, other first names have been used, like Cali Doe (1979), Princess Doe (1982), and Precious Doe (2001). Likewise, these have been used in the titles for US legal cases, such as the infamous Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, for Norma McCorvey and Sandra Cano respectively. This pattern of using Doe and Roe has been in place since the Middle Ages in England to varying official capacities.

2256: Pro-, Far, Portable, and Porous Feb 18, 2021

'Fare', 'far', and 'ferry' are all related to each other and are obviously connected semantically (the sense of 'fare' also as money initially in reference to paying for travel) but the connection spans across many Indo-European languages. For instance, all the words related to 'pro-' and 'fore-' as a prefix, as well as other words like the Latin 'per' (through). Moreover, words like the Latin 'portare' (to carry) and Greek (peran) meaning 'pass through. Indeed, that root would as well connect this to the English 'pour' and by extension 'porous'. There are many more words in this family, but even here it goes to show that there is the possibility for far-reaching roots to develop into nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and even prefixes at once.

2255: Hebrew Contronyms Feb 17, 2021

Hebrew has a causative form for verbs which effectively reverses the meaning of the word, so הוא לומד means 'he learns' and הוא מלמד means 'he teaches', from the same root. It also has a number of contronyms that don't need to change form at all. For instance ללכת usually means 'to go' and לבוא usually means 'to come' but in certain cases that can effectively switch, such as in בא השמש (literally: the sun is coming) referring to a Sunset.

2254: Time & Space in Preposition Feb 16, 2021

There is a strong correlation between a forward direction physically as well as in time; the reverse is true with a backwards direction and the past. There are some exceptions as with in Aymara, but otherwise this is a (near-)universal rule. In Indo-European languages, this manifests not only in prepositions and adverbs (e.g. 'ahead'; 'forward'; 'backward'; toward; behind), but in prefixes. Many are indeed related to those examples before such as in 'fore-' from Old English and ultimately related to 'fare' from 'faran' (to go), along with other prepositions now like the Latin and Greek 'pro-', found in English. 'Before' is also related, and can relate to both time and space. More on this at a later point.

2253: John Doe & Other Stand-In Names Feb 15, 2021

'John Doe' is the name given to men when there is not another name given for whatever reason for law enforcement in the US. More exist in the US for other purposes such as John Q. Public, and of course around the world similar names have been created. In Ancient Rome even the name was 'Numerius Negidius' for the defendant—a play on actual given names that comes to mean "I refuse to pay"—while 'Aulus Agerius', another pun-name from the verb 'agere' meaning 'to set in motion'. In some modern European countries another Latin one is used, but it isn't a pun; Nomen Nescio (n.n.) just means "I do not know the name". In religious Jewish contexts and sometimes secular Israeli ones, the name פלני אלמני (Ploni Almoni) is used as a stand-in, which is originally found in the Book of Ruth probably as a euphemism for Boaz. More on this at another point.

2253: Intro to Pinyin Feb 14, 2021

Pinyin is the official system for transliterating Mandarin Chinese using Latin letters, designed in the 1950's. The goal was to make the language easier to teach to those unfamiliar with the language at the beginning stages. That said, as with any writing system the sounds represented will not be exactly the same. In European languages this is of course still true such as the English Z [z] compared to the German Z [ts], but Pinyin established relations between letters that are otherwise related traditionally, like

J [tɕ], Q [tɕʰ], and X [ɕ] or alternatively

Z [ts], C [tsʰ] (granted Z and C these are commonly related in Slavic languages). Overall, the way the spelling is approximated does not take from any single European language, but picks certain ones out individually.

aside from those sounds usually more distant to the Western ear, the system does allow for a general approximation of Chinese pronunciation, especially with vowels.

2252: nova Feb 13, 2021

Along with 'novel' and 'novice', the Latin 'novus' (feminine 'nova) meaning 'new' also led to a couple literally stellar words like 'nova' and by extension 'supernova'. This is from the phrase 'stella nova' (new star) because at least in the 16th century, the sudden expanding brightness of a nova was thought to be a new star. These were only distinguished from supernovae in the 1930's which was actually the phenomenon that occurred in the 1572 description that led to the coining of the term.

2251: boor & boer Feb 12, 2021

In the same way as 'villain' has only negative connotations today but once denoted peasant farmers, the same process occurred with the word 'boor' or also 'boorish'. Though perhaps not quite as evil, it is still is by no means positive, referring to an ill-mannered person. This word is also originally borrowed, here from the Dutch 'boer' meaning 'farmer', as in the South African Boers (e.g. "Boer Wars"). This root is actually fairly far reaching and led to other words like 'bower' (i.e. birdcage) or the Dutch 'buur' ('neighbor'), the -by suffix denoting habitation (e.g. Selby, Whitby).