2552: arsenic Dec 8, 2021
'Arsenic' shares the same root as 'glass' and 'glow', even though they don't sound similar. This is because of how the word for 'arsenic' was borrowed through Persian. There was a folk etymology for a while that it was from the Greek αρσέν (arsen) meaning 'masculine; virile', which some people associated because of the overall powerful nature of the material. This is not true.
2551: When was the 1st British Prime Minister Dec 7, 2021
What is now thought of with the title of 'prime minister' was only called First Lord of the Treasury, officially, before 1905 in Great Britain. This was used for Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who was also First Lord of the Treasury. This is still true today with prime ministers also carrying the less well known title of First Lord of the Treasury. The man usually credited as being the first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole was only de facto the first, but in 1721 was technically named First Lord of the Treasury.
2550: Attorney Dec 6, 2021
These days, an 'attorney' refers to someone who acts on another's behalf in a legal or business setting. Though the word can stand on its own, outside of legal contexts, it only realistically exists in fixed phrases like 'attorney-in-fact'. Neither of those words on their own have the generic sense of 'agent' or 'deed' respectively, except as a holdover in this phrase. Even the word 'attorney' is a bit strange, with double T's which didn't exist in Latin or Old French 'atorné', and was added later as a misunderstanding.
2549: Timor-Leste Dec 5, 2021
Plenty of regions, and even countries, are named with cardinal directions in their name, like South Sudan or Republic of Northern Macedonia. This is also true in the name of the country, Timor-Leste, though in English this is sometimes 'East Timor'. 'Leste' is 'east' in Portuguese, owing to its Portuguese colonial history, but anglicizing to 'East Timor' only does half the job, because 'timor' means 'east' in the native language of Tetum. Literally therefore its name means 'East-East'. On the other half of the island, now shared with Indonesia, used to be Dutch Timor, now known as 'West Timor', or translated as 'West East'.
2548: melancholy Dec 4, 2021
Like 'gall' and its connection (supposedly) to the gallbladder 'melancholy' was also once a pseudo-medical term. The word Ancient Greek μελαγχολία (melankholía), from μέλας (mélas) meaning 'black; murky'—same root as 'melanin'—and χολή (kholḗ) meaning 'bile', which is the same root as 'cholera'. This black bile, known in Latin as atra bilis (dark bile) believed as a kidney secretion which in excess causes sadness.
2547: gall & gallbladder Dec 3, 2021
To have gall, as in spirited gumption, and to have a gallbladder where the liver's bile is stored might not seem related at first glance, but to doctors of less enlightened times, these would. Linguistically, these are from the same root, and the organ is so named because of Medieval idea of the humors, which is to say it was where one of the four humors (fluids) was stored, believed to be the source of physical and mental characteristics depending on their quantity. In this case, the yellow bile was associated with gumption.
2546: glass (material) Dec 2, 2021
Recent posts discussed how the root *ghel- led to words for many different colors [1] or that related to light and bile, but even just looking at how 'glass' has changed can reveal a great deal of variability alone. From the 13th century it was used with restricted meanings beyond that just the material, in this case meaning 'drinking glass'. In the 14th century it took on the meaning of 'mirror' as in 'looking glass', and by the 15th century it referred to the timekeeping 'hour glass'.
2545: glass, chlorine, & arsenic Dec 1, 2021
The word 'glass' in other languages shares a root with many color-words, but that is far from where the root *ghel- ends. Meaning 'shine', this word also led to many light-associated words like 'glaze', 'glow', 'gold', 'glimmer' 'glare' and more, but also many related to bile like 'chlorine', cholera, and 'gall'. Even 'arsenic' comes through this root, though it was adopted into English through many other languages, ultimately from Old Iranian *zarna- (golden).
2544: glass Nov 30, 2021
Although 'glass' refers to a material in English, throughout Indo-European languages the root of this word often led to other meanings for a variety of colors. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root *ghel- meant 'shine' and as a result eventually came to mean 'glass' in Germanic languages, but also led to words for the colors yellow such as Old English 'glær' or Latin 'glaesum' (amber) or indeed Modern English 'yellow'. In Old Irish 'glass' meant 'green' and in Welsh 'glas' means 'blue'.
2543: Etruscans Nov 29, 2021
Indigeneity of a people to a land is not an easy thing to ascertain. Before the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, there were Celtic tribes, but before then archeological evidence points to several other waves of inhabitation. Likewise, while the pre-Roman Etruscans might not have literally been the first peoples on the peninsula, they are often considered to be the indigenous people before the Romans. Indeed, they contributed much to overall linguistic development, modifying the Greek alphabet into one that would go on to be used by the Romans and spread around the world, and gave many common words to the vocabulary of Indo-European languages. That said, they didn't speak an Indo-European language, and have generally obscure origins. Some have tried to create a language family from linguistic evidence found around the Alps and Adriatic, but this is not agreed upon.
2542: Roll Tide Nov 28, 2021
Lots of chants don't mean anything, such as the University of Minnesota's "ski u mah" which many believe to be from Lakota but is total gibberish. University of Alabama's 'roll tide' though probably is meaningful, though no one is quite sure what for. The nickname 'Crimson Tide' was used towards the start of the 20th century for the team, though this again is not entirely clear as to why. Whatever the case, the phrase is not trademarked.
2541: 'Sesquipedalian' and a Phobia of Syllables Nov 27, 2021
The word 'hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia' refers to the irrational fear of many syllables, but it is also somewhat nonsensical. Its creation being so absurdly long was purposeful, and can be broken down into elements 'monstrum' (monster) which is an English understanding of the Latin meaning 'portent', but even more ridiculous is that the first element is from 'hippopotamus'. The whole thing really is an extension of 'sesquipedalian' which means 'polysyllabic' or more colloquially 'long-winded' from the Latin 'sesquipedalis' meaning 'a foot and a half'. In Latin, this term also related to excessive speech.
2540: Reuss & Its Naming Nov 26, 2021
Although now part of Thuringia, Germany, there was a principality of the Holy Roman Empire named after Slavs until the 19th century. 'Reusse' (German 'Reuß') is sometimes translated as 'Russian' though really it means 'Ruthenian' and although the land had long been populated with a high number of Slavs, this connection was cemented with the marriage of King Daniel of Galicia into the local nobility. This region was also associated with some singular naming practices, such as the House of Reuss naming all its men 'Heinrich' and numbering each, even those not in power, Heinrich I all the way to Heinrich C (Heinrich the one hundredth) before repeating the cycle, or with another line of this house restarting the cycle at the end of the century.
2539: Cypro-Minoan Syllabary: Linear C Nov 25, 2021
Early forms of Greek used their own early forms of writing known as Linear A and Linear B. At one point the term "Linear C" was in use, though that has now basically been usurped by "Cypro-Minoan syllabary". This was, too, used for what has been deduced as an early variety of Greek, with most inscriptions in this writing system found on the island of Cyprus with others found one location of the Syrian coast. This was brought by Minoan settlers from Crete. Although this early writing had existed in its evolved forms for at least 14 centuries from the creation of Linear A to the decline of its final descendants, these characters did not survive.
2538: Cypriot Syllabary Nov 24, 2021
The Republic of Cyprus is the only other country to officially use the Greek alphabet, but in the ancient world it had its own writing system for its particular dialect of Greek. Developed from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary, the Cypriot syllabary is a unique system, unrelated to the later Greek alphabet or its predecessors. The oldest known inscriptions were found from about 1500BC and other fragments indicate it was in use nearly a millennium later. Eventually, this would be replaced by foreign systems and end that particular chain of writing systems descended from Linear A.
2537: "Change" in Hebrew Root Letters Nov 23, 2021
Broadly speaking, Hebrew uses a system of 3-consonant roots are modified in various ways that change the meaning etc.. It is therefore important to retain these 3 letters as the core of the word, though there are some exceptions. Roots can end with a vowel sound for instance, and that will have certain implications, but sometimes the spelling conventions will change for a less grammatical reason. The for עשאה (ʔasa'ah) meaning 'make it' exists from the root letters ע-ש-ה meaning 'to do' but the א is added only because normally it would be another ה, either of which at the end are silent, usually. In actual fact, the final ה has aspiration in some cases (as is the case here) like the H in the 'house'. To retain the silence of what would be the first ה of עשהה, it is changed to עשאה.
2536: Bad Censorship (by Catholics) Nov 22, 2021
Catholic censors of the Talmud (the compilation of Jewish oral-law) were tasked with removing sections that the Church didn't like, but often with a clear lack of understanding of the language. In one instance, these censors were told to replace any use of גוי (goi) which literally just means 'nation' with עכו"ם (akum), an acronym עבודת כוכבים ומזלות (avdos cochavim u'mazlos) meaning 'worshiper of stars and constellations', including replacing a quote from Exodus גוי קדוש (goy kadosh) meaning 'holy nation' referring to the Jewish people. This resulted in a quote from the Bible being rewritten as "holy star worshipers" by the Catholics.
2535: Why 'Un-' Doesn't Assimilate Like 'In-' (Ir- Il- Im-) Nov 21, 2021
The prefix 'in-' assimilates to different sounds depending upon the context, becoming 'im-', 'il-', and 'ir-', but this is not true of 'un-', which is similar both semantically but more importantly, phonetically. For instance, 'in-' + 'responsible' is 'irresponsible', but 'un-' + 'responsive' is 'unresponsive'. This was true of the negating prefix 'in-' in Latin whence this use was borrowed, and while 'un-' is distantly related to this, it is really considered to be of a Germanic root where this does not happen.
2534: aquarium, terrarium, vivarium Nov 20, 2021
In Latin, the word 'aquārius' as either a noun or an adjective referred to anything water-related, including an aquarium (hence the English) but also aqueducts and workers thereon. Still, in its association with artificial animal-enclosures this led to 'terrarium' on the same pattern. Latin also had the word 'vīvārium' which does exist in English but is significantly less common, denoting any sort of enclosure for raising animals.
2533: brian Nov 19, 2021
The name 'Brian' is of somewhat disputed origin but generally thought to come from a Celtic root 'bre' meaning 'hill'. The word took on the sense of 'nobility' or just 'exalted' from the sense of physical height. Another connection is to Celtic mythology supposedly, but the mythical figure of Brian actually had his name changed from Uar. 'Brian' started out exclusively as a title, but eventually became one of the most popular names in the anglosphere, especially in Britain and Ireland in the 20th century.