2289: Suprafix Mar 23, 2021
If one wanted to make 'like' past-tense, all that's needed is a suffix: a term for a concept which is fairly well understood. For other matters though, there are processes that are more complicated to observe and are certainly less well known. For instance, in structural linguistics, the idea of the so-called 'suprafix' developed, which is a suprasegmental element added from a pattern such as with tone or stress, such as in English with the difference between
ímport (noun) - impórt (verb)
2288: dean & 10 (Expanded)—Mar 22, 2021
There are a lot of words related to 'dom-' like 'don', 'domain', and relating to control, leadership, and in the case of 'don', 'education', and yet 'dean' is not related. Instead, 'dean' is from the Latin 'decanus' meaning 'leader of ten (soldiers)', unsurprisingly . Indeed, the Roman army's arrangements of tens led to multiple words in English including 'decimate'. Quickly however, the meaning took on other settings such as in the Church and eventually, in English, in education. There was actually a similar word in Old English, teoðingealdor, but at any rate 'dean', and the related 'decan' and 'doyan' are here to stay.
2287: brief & mirth Mar 21, 2021
Not terribly alike in sound nor in meaning, 'brief' and 'merry' are not only related, except of course if brevity effects happiness. These two words are considered doublets, i.e. they diverged from the same word, but they are quite old and show many traces of historical divergences, such as how 'mirth' is how to express 'merry' as a noun, despite appearing fairly different. That said, the relation between [m] and [b] shouldn't stick out too much between 'mirth' and 'brief' since the former is just the nasalized form of the latter (just try saying [m] with a really blocked up nose) and [f] is a common way the TH becomes alters. Semantically however, these two words only eventually diverged after the original meaning of "short; small; or (counterintuitively) slow" when 'merry' began to describe the passage of enjoyable moments passing quickly, without care, and eventually described the emotion behind that. Initially as well 'merry' had the sense of 'fine' or 'pleasant' in a more general sense than it has today.
2286: wrath + -th = wroth...? Mar 20, 2021
'Wrath' and 'wroth' are obviously related, both in meaning and spelling, but not in the way one might assume upon first glance. Rather than being variants in the way 'swim-swam-swum' or 'raise-rise' are with internal vowel change, the Old English for 'wrath' was 'wrǣþþu', equivalent to 'wroth' plus '-th': the same suffix in 'warm-warmth'. 'Wroth' therefore was originally an adjective (Old English: wrāþ; Middle English: wrað), roughly synonymous with 'cruel'. These two are not immediately related to 'wreath', 'writhe', or 'wry' (each related to the others) though many like to connect the sense of twisting to that of anger, in a similar way to what happened with 'wrong' and 'worry'.
2285: bias & cutting Mar 19, 2021
The word 'bias' is related to the word 'cut, though clearly none of those sounds are related. The original sense of 'bias' meant something like 'sideways', but the Vulgar Latin ebigassius, originally from Greek, is related via Proto Indo European root *krs-yo, taking from the root *sker-. As discussed earlier, this lead to both 'shear' and 'cut', along with dozens of other terms, some more similar today than others.
2284: cut, shear, and carve Mar 18, 2021
Now replaced by the word 'cut', the words 'shear' and 'carve' used to have more general meanings. 'Carve' now is restricted to cutting a material into a certain shape, engraving, or cutting meat. In the case of 'shear', this actually comes from the same Indo European root as 'cut', that being *ker-, leading to other words including 'carrion', 'curt', 'skirmish', 'skirt', 'scrap', 'shard', 'scar' and many more. That said, now 'shear' also has a fairly specific, restricted use especially relating to hair and other cuttings of top-layers of things.
2283: Folk Etymology: sovereign, foreign & reign Mar 17, 2021
Though the spelling in English can often paint a picture for the history of the language and etymology of words, this is not the case with the word 'sovereign'. This comes from the Latin 'superānus'—also the root of 'soprano'—from the root 'super' (above) which led to the Old French 'soverain'. The connection to the word 'reign' is entirely from folk etymology. It is believed that the -g- in 'foreign' was also added with association to 'reign'.
2282: Length of a Mile: Past and Present Mar 16, 2021
Though most countries have officially switched to the metric system, there are some ways in which imperial terminology has crept back in. For instance, in Norway and Sweden people still use the word for 'mile' to refer to a distance of 10 kilometers. Historically, in those places a mile would have been between 10.688 kilometers in Sweden to 11.295 kilometers in Norway. Earlier still, in both Scandinavia and Germany it was equal to 4 minutes of arc or just over 7,421m (a Roman mile was about 1 minute arc on the Earth's surface). Similarly large, in Russia a mill unit was equal to seven versta, or about 7,468 meters, many times larger than a mile in the US. There is some debate about the length of Aramaic term מיל (mil), but most agree on 2,000 cubits (~3,000ft or close to a kilometer), but some say it is equivalent to the Roman mile since this is where the term comes from.
2281: Frequentative, Iterative, and Habitual Aspects Mar 15, 2021
There is a general decline in morphology and general grammatical features in English as time goes on. This is by no means universal, but across Indo-European languages this happens not only with words themselves becoming less morphologically complex, but as in the case of the frequentative, habitual and iterative (grammatical) aspects, syntactically simpler. In a nutshell, each of these expressed repeated action, but in different ways, with the frequentative expressing repetition and intensity of action—think 'chatter' [1] from 'chat'—and the iterative aspect signifying repeated action within one instance, such as 'he knocked on the door'. Those two now are generally more dependant on a word's meaning or historical carryover, while the habitual aspect—signalling continual action that may or may not be presently happening e.g. 'Bob runs' (i.e. 'Bob is a runner')—is somewhat productive, and in certain dialects like African American English is extremely productive, relying on the so-called habitual 'be'.
2280: wrong, wrangle, worry and wring Mar 14, 2021
The suffix -le can signal diminutives but also it is retained as a historic suffix to mark the frequentative form which once expressed repeated action over multiple instances. This is the case in 'wrangle' for instance which comes from Low German 'wrangeln' (to wrangle) but from the root 'wrangen' (to strangle). This led to the split in the English 'wrangle' and 'wring' which likewise lost the W in the German 'rangeln' (wrestle), and related to the Dutch 'vringle' (twist). The sense of twisting of truth also elucidates the connection there with 'wrong'—this being a common Germanic root each time eventually gaining the same moral connotations—and 'worry', which originally meant 'choke'.
2279: wrongness vs. wrength Mar 13, 2021
The traditional nominal form of 'wrong' is 'wrength' as opposed to today's 'wrongness'. It is not, however, entirely clear where that would have come from. Obviously it would not be irregular considering long-length, strong-strength, etc. but the probable Old English *wrengþu is unattested. It could therefore be that the Middle English 'wrength' is backformed from words like 'strength' with that pattern being applied later onto 'wrong' (historically, 'wrang'). Either way, it's all but lost these days.
2278: Mandatory Talmud in Korea Mar 12, 2021
The South Korean constitution guarantees that "religion and state shall be separated" but parts of the Talmud, a Jewish religious texts, is part of the national curriculum, even in primary schools. This isn't for any specific religious reason, but that in the latter half of the 20th century it was brought over and translated by rabbis in Japan where in both countries it was seen as a means of modelling Jews' high academic standards. Tae Zang publishing house originally printed its "5,000 Years of Jewish Wisdom" in 1974 followed by many others in Korean and China, with many Koreans using black-market talmudic translations.
2277: Optative Voice Mar 11, 2021
In certain languages, there is another mood along with indicative, subjunctive, imperative and the like known as the optative expressing a wish, as might be covered in English by 'if only...'. This was common verbal mood across Indo-European languages historically but these have usually been lost in a gradual process of morphological and syntactic simplification, reducing many distinct specific features for less precise periphrastic constructions. Some languages like Sanskrit and Ancient Greek are well known for this, but it is retained in Albanian, Armenian, and Kurdish, as well as non-Indo-European languages like Navajo, Yupik, Turkish and Georgian. English cannot neatly express this, but modal verbs like 'may' in "may you have good health" convey a similar intent, though this is also possible even with the present tense as in "G-d help us". In Albanian this is known as "mënyra dëshirore" or literally "wishing mood".
2276: nonce Mar 10, 2021
A number of modern words are the result of wrong division, i.e. splitting or affixing sounds across multiple words such as in 'napkin' or 'adder' which respectively gained and lost an [n] due to the indefinite article 'an'. This is not the only word for which it has happened though, as can be seen with 'nonce' meaning 'a single occasion' as in "it worked for the nonce". This is connected, unsurprisingly to 'once' but with wrong division from a Middle English word 'þan' (than) as in 'þan anes'. In fact, 'anes' in 'once' and 'nonce' is actually from the genitive form of 'one' (ān) as in "of one". Separately, 'nonce' is also British slang but it has nothing in relation to the other meaning. It couldn’t possibly have been from ‘an’ as with the other words mentioned above as is commonly expected in cases of wrong division, since that has the same root as the ‘one/once’ in ‘nonce’ itself.
2275: jovial & Jove Mar 9, 2021
Around the world, many cultures have associated certain times of year with heightened happiness. While likely few would still have any association between the two, the word 'jovial' meant born under the influence of the planet Jupiter, also called 'Jove' in English. Indeed, the Latin '-ālis' ending was used to express relationship, in this case with the head of their pantheon, Iovis. This astrological relation and an idea that those people born in that zodiac period were cheerier people led to the modern definition.
2274: gem Mar 8, 2021
In the past many thought that crystals really grew from being alive, and considering the etymology of 'gem', this might not have really seemed such a crazy idea. 'Gem', in its original sense meant 'bud', from the Latin 'gemma', which comes from a root *gen- meaning 'produce'. The root itself is somewhat mysterious, and so cognates are not exactly clear with it, but the root may also have had to do with the growth of other things including nails, with the current sense of 'gem' coming later in relation to the shape of seeds and buds, or their other qualities.
2273: jewel Mar 7, 2021
The word 'jewel' being associated exclusively with precious stones and other gems only began in the 14th century. The word's origins are not certain, but it is generally associated either with the same root as 'joy', or as 'joke'; either way originally having the meaning of something to cause happiness. Along the first line, the Latin gaudium (joy) is the root of the French 'joie' which these days has a rather carefree and innocent sense, but historically related to physical pleasures and sometimes materialism. Alternatively, this word might be related to the word 'joke', from the Latin 'iocus' which also had a more general sense historically. Either way, the word has surely diverged in its meaning over time.
2272: Intro to Hunsurik: Brazil's Own German Mar 6, 2021
The language of Hunsurik, a German language spoken in Brazil, in many ways mirrored the historical process seen in the development of German in the 18th and 19th centuries. In those times, there was no standard German, neither in spelling nor in dialect. Eventually in the early 19th century this started to take place in Germany along with the unification of the country around what is now the standard, but with mass immigration to the Americas, German use in Brazil instead involved the Hunsrück dialect in part due to numerical superiority among the German immigrants. The spelling as well does not resemble that of Standard German, resembling certain aspects of Dutch and Portuguese orthography, but despite having around 3 million speakers and a number of school its writing is not standardized or even completely codified.
2271: Zwei...Zwene, & Zwo? Mar 5, 2021
The German word for 2, 'zwei' is not declined like a regular adjective in German. Historically, all three grammatical genders were used, including 'zwene' or 'zween' for the masculine which has entirely dropped out, and the feminine 'zwo' which is a variant sometimes used for clarity with 'drei' (three), such as in military radio transmissions. This loss of gender in cardinal numbers is not universal in German with 'eins' (one) declined normally; moreover, Luxembourgish and certain Swiss German dialects still feature variants like 'zwou' and 'zwéin' [Luxembourgish]. It does elucidate the connection to the English 'twain'—also historically the masculine form of 'twā' [feminine]—but in the case of 'twain' this was later used more broadly before certain types of words such as nouns as to disambiguate between it and 'to' or 'too', thus outlasting the general breakdown of English's grammatical gender.
2270: Elves in Old English Compounds Mar 4, 2021
Elves have not only had a lasting impression on given-names (conceptually speaking), but historically there was a much greater presence of elf-based compounds. For instance ælfadl (nightmare) literally 'elf-disease' and ælfsogoða (hiccough) or 'elf-heartburn'. Elves, seen as malicious creatures, were thought by many to cause many afflictions. Indeed, the phrase elf-lock is still used today to refer to tangled hair. In a distant sense, this may also be related to the 'Alps' mountain range.