2473: Cleveland Guardians Sep 19, 2021
Unlike with the Washington Football Team which moved to remove its old name of the Washington Redskins and went with a temporary name (still in use) the Cleveland Indians became the Cleveland Guardians in 2021, and at the same time announced their new logo, and mascots. Many had predicted other named, including the Cleveland Spiders, a name used over 110 years ago for a Cleveland baseball team, but in the end it was named for the Guardian of Traffic statues in the city.
2472: lime & limestone Sep 18, 2021
'Lime', as in 'limestone' or just the fruit, don't have anything to do with each other. Regarding the material, this is actually related to the word 'slime', both further related to German 'schleim' (mucus), Latin 'limus' (mud) and Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē) meaning, 'marsh'. This is later developed into words for glue—even now limestone is an ingredient in cement—and then again changed to denote the substance calcium oxide. The fruit on the other hand is from Persian لیمو (līmū). This is turn is likely from the Sanskrit निम्बू (nimbū) originally meaning 'lime' but which also influenced 'lemon'.
2471: lemon & citrus Sep 17, 2021
Around Europe, two different basic terms for 'lemon', or alternatively 'citron' are used, both very likely of Semitic origin though this is not certain. Ultimately, 'lemon', also found in Portuguese 'limão' and Spanish 'limón', along with a number of other Semitic and Nilo-Saharan languages comes from Arabic لَيْمُون (laymūn), itself from Persian and likely with a connection to the Sanskrit word for 'lime'. 'Citron' on the other hand, as in the French 'citron', German 'Zitron', or Italian 'cedro' is via the Latin 'citrus' from Greek, likely from a Mediterranean, pre-Greek root akin to the Arabic قَطْرَان (qaṭrān), which may have been used to describe the resins and only later the fruit itself. More on how limes fit into the story tomorrow.
2470: Codex & Affix: Why Different Plurals? Sep 16, 2021
The plural of 'index' is 'indices' and likewise with 'codex' to 'codices', but the plural of 'affix' is 'affixes'. This is not in fact inconsistent, but a result of the way in which English borrows words from Latin. In the case of 'codex', this is a Latin word in the 3rd declension which had a Latin plural of 'codices'. Strictly speaking, the plural is simply '-ēs' but the 'x' is assimilated along with the vowel as seen in the rest of the forms including the genitive singular 'cōdicis'. In the case of 'affix', this is formed from the prefix 'ad-' (toward) and 'fixus', which is the participial form of the verb 'figere' meaning 'to fasten', as in 'join together'. Since English generally does not take the 2nd declension '-us-' ending, 'affixus' (the -d- was assimilated) becomes mere 'affix'.
2469: -kin, -tje, and Afrikaans 'oke' Sep 15, 2021
The Dutch diminutive suffix -kin (found in English with the borrowed 'mannequin') is highly productive, and its related form '-tje' morphs into different forms. Depending upon the sound of the word it is affixed onto, it can appear as '-je ' before a fricative, '-etje' before a sonorant, '-tje' before long vowels and diphthongs, '-pje' with stressed vowel or before [m], or '-kje' before '-ng', though then this becomes '-nkje'; some of these can appear as simply '-ie' in slang. Further, in Afrikaans slang, 'ou' (i.e. 'old') took the diminutive form 'outjie' but was reduced as 'oke' in modern slang meaning 'guy; dude; bro'. This is therefore unrelated to 'bloke' of English slang, despite similar sound and meaning.
2468: forest Sep 14, 2021
'Forest' is a word with cognates in both Germanic and Romance languages, but few with meanings like in English. Originally, the phrase was from Late Latin phrase 'forestis silva' (the outside woods) as a term to distinguish the royal forests, also called a 'park' (parcus). The actual Latin word 'silva' was misunderstood and they took 'forestis'. This replaced 'weald' in Old English (related to 'wald' in German), 'scough', originally Old Norse 'skógr', and Middle English 'firth'.
2467: steward, constable, & marshal Sep 13, 2021
'Steward' and 'constable' are not related, but with somewhat convergent meaning from a definitions which would now be virtually unrecognizable that were equally similar in the past. The 'ste-' of 'steward' is from the same root as 'sty' as in 'pigsty' and '-stable of 'constable also became 'stable', as in where livestock live. Therefore, a steward was the ward (i.e. guard) of a sty, and a constable was the guard of a stables. The meaning of 'steward' as general manager of estates or ships etc. came much later, both from natural development and especially from confusion on translation of French terms after the Conquest of 1066. 'Constable' totally synonymous with 'steward' for a time, though eventually these affairs constables oversaw became increasingly, later exclusively legal in nature, hence its meaning as police officer. Likewise, 'marshal' went through a quite similar transformation, from 'mare-shalk' (i.e. 'horse guard') to a general official title related to law enforcement, though this historical change happened from French.
2466: county Sep 12, 2021
Counties are named because they were ruled by counts, but at least in England, not to mention other places, these could have been ruled by other types of people, including earls, lords, dukes, etc.. Before this, the Old English used 'scir', an ancestor of the Modern English 'shire'. Moreover, 'count' comes from Old French which was meant to be a translation of 'earl' (O.E.: 'eorl') but 'count' was primarily used as a term for foreign leaders in particular.
2465: piano Sep 11,
'Piano' means 'soft' in Italian, and this might seem strange on its own considering the power of the instrument, but it is shortened from 'pianoforte', literally 'soft-loud', named for the fact it could alternate volume more than its predecessors, harpsichords and clavichords. The word for 'piano' was borrowed, but words of that same root had been around for some time before. Both 'plane' and 'plain' are related to each other come from the sense of level, smooth, broad, even etc..
2464: C-K-Q were Redundant, Even in Ancient Times Sep 10, 2021
In English C, K, and Q may seem redundant together, but this is not actually new. Etruscan used C before front vowels, K before the vowel [a], and Q before back vowels. Effectively, this would be as if English used two different letters for the T in 'tail' as compared to 'trail', which also changes due to the linguistic environment. These Etruscan letters were therefore not phonemic—the sounds, if theoretically used in each other's places would not have changed the meaning of any word—and were in that sense basically redundant even back then. In Etruscan this may have been phonologically redundant, but there is a very minor, allophonic change that happens going from [ki] to [ka] to [ku] in where the consonant is pronounced in one's mouth. You can try this out yourself.
In Latin, which inherited these letters but did not distinguish between back and front vowels in its spelling, this redundancy was present, and some writers commented on it at the time even. Eventually C morphed into a fricative before E and I, like how it is found in Spanish or Italian today. This therefore made the letter K relevant to distinguish when one wanted to indicate the [k] sound in any context, but still it was not terribly useful.
2465: lamb & yean Sep 9, 2021
Old English had the word 'ēanian' (now 'yean') for 'to lamb' as a verb, but 'lamb' is an Old English word anyway too. This disparity comes from two different roots, but the verbal form is related to many Romantic or Slavic nouns like the Latin 'agnus' (lamb) or Serbo-Croatian ја̏гње (jȁgnje). 'Lamb' on the other hand is mostly related to modern Germanic cognates, and even the English 'elk'. These both come from different Proto-Indo-European roots that converged into the same meaning, and in some languages one became dominant. By the Middle Ages, 'lamb' won out in English.
2462: The Cotton Fire and the Dissolution of the Monasteries Sep 8, 2021
The Cotton Fire (named for the library's founder, not the material) was significant in its devastation because the library housed many antiques and particularly rare books. This time, AD 1731, was particularly significant as well because its founder who died 1631 had gotten many documents that were being privatized after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, a series of legal decrees that broke up monasteries, convents, abbeys, etc., selling off land and liquidating many assets including priceless documents and manuscripts. During the English Reformation as well, many books were destroyed outright, for their materials, or purchased with no understanding of value and stored in any sort of condition. Therefore, when Sir Robert Bruce Cotton had in the late 16th and early 17th century made a point of collecting some of these, often his library housed sole copies. The fire, which caused some 1/4 of the library to be lost meant that many documents were completely lost forever, and many others, like the only copy of Beowulf, took significant damage.
2461: Old English Rune Poem Sep 7, 2021
The Old English rune poem is a significant document in runology wherein each line contains a riddle to which the name of the rune is the answer. It uses 29 Anglo-Saxon runes as opposed to Young Futhark's runes. Unfortunately, the original was lost in the Cotton Fire at Ashburn House in 1731, though it had been copied in 1705 onto copper plates. On these copies however, some of the formatting was changed and possibly more than two lines were added.
2460: How D-Day was almost Stopped by a Crossword Sep 6, 2021
D-Day was one of the most significant days of the 20th century, and yet it was all almost stopped due to a crossword puzzle. In the days leading up to the originally chosen date, the The Daily Telegraph had answers across multiple crosswords that included on one 'Utah', 'Omaha', then 'Mulberry', 'Overlord', and finally 'Neptune': all names of landing sites chosen in the beaches of Normandy, or names for operations (e.g. Operation Overlord). After an investigation by MI5, this was determined to be a coincidence.
2459: Semitic Definite Article Sep 5, 2021
Two Semitic languages, Hebrew and Arabic, have on the surface two differently sourced definite articles, ה־ (ha-) in Hebrew and ٱلْـ (al-) in Arabic, but some linguistics think otherwise. They surmise that originally there was a form هل۔/הל־ (hal-) used in a proto-Semitic language and as they two diverged, this form did as well, splitting in two separate ways. Not everyone agrees with this, and even those who would agree to the idea principle, they propose different forms. Some of these include in Arabic لا (lā) either through metathesis or as a different particle that eventually took on the meaning of a determiner.
2458: German Cake: Not Named for Germany Sep 4, 2021
The sort of chocolate cake known as 'German cake' is not only invented in America, but wasn't even supposed to be named after the country of Germany. Plenty of foods are named for their supposed region of origin like 'French fries' but in this case it was just named after a man Samuel German who started the Baker's Chocolate Company who named it "Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate".
2457: Solomon Sep 3, 2021
The Hebrew given name שלמה (Shlomo) is Solomon in English, and features this extra terminal -N in most other languages except Jewish ones like Yiddish. Even in the fellow Semitic language of Arabic it is →سُلَيْمَان (Suleimān) this is present. This is because of the Greek influence over the other major sources of the name's wider adoption like Latin and Syriac Aramaic, with Greek adding a '-on' suffix which was just retained elsewhere. Between Latin in the Christian world and Arabic in the Muslim world, many languages of totally variant language families have this terminal -N, with a notable exception of Spanish which got its version (Zulema) from Arabic.
2456: Fraternities Using Greek Sep 2, 2021
Fraternities and Sororities in North America usually use 2 or 3 Greek letters in their names. Some of these don't stand for anything, but originally these secret societies, now public, used Greek mottos, such as the oldest, ΦΒΚ, standing for Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης (Philosophia Biou Kybernētēs) literally translating as "love of wisdom [philosophy] is the helmsman of life", or ΔΥ standing for Δικαια Υποθηκη (Dikaia Upotheke) for 'justice, our foundation'. Some fraternal societies have kept these mottos secret, or have just picked Greek letters for nothing in particular.
2455: H-Hour & D-Day Sep 1, 2021
H-Hour refers to the time of day which a battle was set to commence, with this phrase entering the military parlance of the First World War. The 'H-' stands for 'hour' in effect, but the Norwegian calque 'klokken H' only took the letter and not the pattern. This pattern was also used for D-Day, which now refers to a specific moment in history—June 6, 1944—but just referred to the planned, secretive date of the Normandy landings.
2455: syphilis Aug 31, 2021
'Syphilis', since its arrival to Europe from the Americas took on a number of euphemisms including 'purple flower', 'great imitator', 'black lion', and so on. It might sound therefore that 'syphilis' is the scientific name is more straightforward, but this too is a sort of euphemism, coming from the name of a character in Girolamo Fracastoro's poem about a boy who insults a Greek deity and is cursed with a harsh disease. The poem actually used the spelling 'Syphilus' but this was changed in common spelling for the disease.