2572: milk Dec 28, 2021

The English words 'milk' and 'lactose' obviously have related meanings, but moreover they share a common root. There is a clear set of relationships across Germanic languages for milky words like Milch (German), melk (Dutch/Afrikaans), as well as in Slavic languages молоко (moloko) in Russian, or mleko/mlijeko (Serbo-Croatian/Slovenian). Conversely, across Romance languages this is less clearly related with French 'lait', Spanish 'leche', and Italian 'latte' to the Ancient Greek γάλακτος (gálaktos) from γάλα (gála), but each of these comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root.

2571: galaxy & milky way Dec 27, 2021

This galaxy is referred to as the Milky Way, but really it should not be so generic. The Ancient Greek γάλακτος gálaktos, from γάλα (gála), means 'milk'. This was used in Medieval times to refer to our galaxy only, due to the hazy, white band of light as seen in the night sky without other star-gazing devices. This was then applied to all galaxies, but that name wouldn't make much sense to describe other places.

2570: Empathy: A False Friend Dec 26, 2021

English has two words, 'empathy' and 'sympathy', that clearly share a root and have similar meaning. The Greek '-πάθεια' ending means 'suffering'—in this case describing one's ability to understand another's pain—but in Greek εμπάθεια (empátheia) means 'malice'. A more literal translation of the Greek, though lacking the necessary negative connotation, could be 'passion', but would not be a desired quality. The reason behind this apparent division is that the English version was chosen as a deliberate if imperfect attempt to translate the German 'Einfühlung', rather than being trying to capture the Greek meaning.

2569: Greek Re-Borrowing 'Cinema' Dec 25, 2021

While English has a number of regional words for movie theater, including 'cinema', and this word has permeated many other languages. Originally from Greek κίνημα (kínima) meaning 'movement' and the same root as 'kinetic' led to the German 'Kino' (from 'Kinematograph') via the French 'cinéma(tographe)'. This was the later reborrowed into Greek σινεμά (sinemá) with that same meaning.

2568: Much vs. Mucho Dec 24, 2021

Despite the obvious similarities in form and meaning, it would be wrong to assume that 'much' and the Spanish 'mucho' are unrelated. 'Mucho' is from the Latin 'multus' and while at first glance it might not seem so close, the Portuguese cognate 'muito' provides some context. The English 'much' on the other hand is from the Germanic *mikilaz (great; much), like the Old English 'michel'. The Middle English 'muchel' retained the [l] but this was eventually lost. It is related to the Spanish 'maño', no longer in use, meaning 'big'.

2567: fiance & betrothed Dec 23, 2021

Of descriptive titles for a person who is engaged, the most common include 'fiancé(e)' and 'betrothed'. Both of these, in fact have the same etymological basis even though they are from different languages. 'Fiancé(e)' is from French, though originally the root is with the Latin 'fidere' (related to 'fides') meaning 'to trust', or as a noun 'truth'. This is the same root as the English 'fidelity' as well as 'fealty' and 'fiat', which also connect the idea of 'trust' to agreements. 'Betroth' (or indeed 'troth') is from an old and now out-of-use form of 'truth', with 'troth' also having another sense of 'agreement' or 'pledge'. Unlike 'betroth/ed', English did not also take the verbal form of 'fiancé(e)' from French, which is 'fiancer', and so must use another word 'engaged'.

2566: Eastern Iranian Peoples to the West Dec 22, 2021

Although tens of millions of people speak Iranian languages like Farsi, or Pashto which is an Eastern Iranian language, far to the west of that is Ossetia where a Northeastern Iranian language is spoken between Georgia and Russia. In fact, a number of groups of related groups moved over, some even further such as the Jász in central Hungary, and the Alans who ended up in Spain and North Africa with the fall of the Romans. Now the Ossetians are the largest of these groups, each of whom are or were surrounded by unrelated languages and peoples, from Iranian groups settled to the east of those heartlands.

2565: Guinea-Bissau Dec 21, 2021

There are a number of places named for 'Guinea', a historical region of Africa. Among those, Guinea Bissau is notable because 'Bissau' is not an adjective in the same way as found with 'Equatorial Guinea'. Rather, Bissau is the capital and was named from this after formerly being 'Portuguese Guinea' because the nonspecific 'Guinea' was already taken, having itself once been 'French Guinea'.

2564: Ursula Dec 20, 2021

The name 'Ursula' is from the Latin 'ursa' (meaning 'bear'), with the feminine diminutive suffix '-ula', but that is not the main reason why people would chose to give that name perhaps. The popularity came from a 4th century saint, Saint Ursula. Many fantastic stories exist about her, though the exact historical record on her is not solid. Still, in addition to making famous an old Latin name—especially in non-Romance speaking areas especially in Slavic Eastern Europe—she also inspired the name for the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, among other places.

2563: Boustrophedon Dec 19, 2021

Boustrophedon is a style of writing, theoretically in any linear script, wherein the direction of the writing on each line alternates. This will mean in Greek for example the first line will be right-to-left and the next line will be left-to-write. It can be done with the letters rotating on the horizontal- or vertical axis. This practice was done relatively commonly in the ancient world and many clay tablets exist from Greece and the surrounding areas especially with those styles in place. 'Boustrophedon' anyway takes its name from Greek meaning 'turning bull'.

2562: cauliflower Dec 18, 2021

Many plants are related to cabbages biologically, but this is also reflected in the name of some foods. 'Cauliflower' for instance is from the dated French 'chou fleuri' meaning literally ‘flowered cabbage’. This on its own is pretty old, but the original English for this developed into 'colieflorie' with the first element influenced by 'cole' (related to 'kale') meaning 'cabbage'. This 'cole/kale' connection is also seen in borrowed from Dutch 'cole' for 'coleslaw'.

2561: aorist Dec 17, 2021

People will be familiar with past or present tense, but fewer will have heard of the aorist tense. This is really only applied to Ancient Greek verbs which were simple and undefined. Unlike the typical understanding of tense, this exists outside a description of time, but still exists alongside all verbal moods (e.g. indicative; subjunctive), persons, voices (e.g. active; passive), etc.. This is used for many purposes, one narrative use being for stating things as truthful, or generally consistent, not bound by time per se.

2560: Iotacism Dec 16, 2021

Iotacism, also referred to as 'itacism' describes the shift of diphthongs or groups of vowels converging into the [i] sound. This pattern is not named for a speech impediment like with sigmatism or lambdacism, but for communitywide sound-shifts as on the naming pattern of rhotacism or zetacism. Greek is notable for its iotacism, since in Modern Greek, the letters and letter pairs which used to represent all totally different sounds ι, η, υ, ει, οι, υι are all said now as [i].

2559: Sigmatism Dec 15, 2021

Although many conditions and linguistic phenomena are named with a Greek letter plus '-cism', they aren't always named for the same reasons. 'Sigmatism', like 'lambdacism' describes a speech impediment that regularly affects one sound, in this case [s], though that can denote either the over- or underproduction of it. This can be an appropriate term to describe the effect of a lisp, though not necessarily.

2558: paul Dec 14, 2021

The name 'Paul' is found around the New Testament, though it is not from Greek. Indeed, the apostle who bore the name was himself born 'Saul' (שאול‎‎) but in Latin 'Paulus', literally 'small', was used to distinguish people with the same name, not so unlike 'junior'. Later, the connotations to 'small' took on the sense of 'humble'. This in turn took on religious connotations, and 'Paul' gained popularity thereafter.

2557: Lunatics Dec 13, 2021

There is a misunderstanding that the word 'lunatic' relates to a medieval or otherwise Christian understanding of witches practicing paganism or sorcery around the moon and its cycles. The word is actually much older and the concept can be seen across the ancient world, even in pagan cultures, as reflected in the etymology. This word is from Latin 'lunaticus' (moon-struck), replacing the Old English 'monseoc' (literally 'moon-sick'). These sorts of concepts of staring at the moon to cause mental diminishment also exist in Jewish scriptural literature—though not with such specific terminology for the people—millenia before the accusations of medieval European opinions.

2556: Zetacism and Lambdacism Dec 12, 2021

Rhotacism, named from the Greek letter Ρ, ρ (rho), is the process of sounds shifting and becoming like /r/. Other terms with names taken from this pattern like zetacism or lambdacism do not always have the same implication. For instance, zetacism occurs when /z/, the most common sound to be effected to /r/ via rhotacism, remains not rhotacized even though it would be expected to. Lambdacism can refer, rather counterproductively, to either a difficulty pronouncing the /l/ sound, or an overproduction of the /l/ sound especially in place of /r/. This happens in some varieties of Carribean Spanish, such as saying 'Puelto Rico'.

2555: flee, fly, float Dec 11, 2021

The participial form of 'fly' is 'flight' while for 'flee' this would be 'fled'. This pair is, perhaps unsurprisingly, related, but they've long been each slightly different to the other. In Old English, these were 'flēogan' and 'flēon' respectively, but they shared a common root from the Proto-Germanic *fleuhaną. Originally this root meant 'flow', and naturally enough this is also related. From this it elucidates how this root also led to words like 'fleet' and 'float', or Old English 'flēot' (ship).

2554: taut, tie, tough Dec 10, 2021

The word 'taut' (once 'taught') is now only an adjective, but originally it was a participle from Old English 'toen' meaning 'drag; pull'. This would connect it with the word 'tow' which has retained the earlier meaning more than 'taut' has. Furthermore, not only would this give another English connection to 'tie' but also 'tough'. This is from the Proto-Indo-European *dewk-, also the source of the Latin 'dux' meaning 'lead', and this Italian 'duce' (leader).

2553: Calzones and Underpants Dec 9, 2021

The pizza-dish known as 'calzone' in Italian means 'stocking; trouser' certainly does not mean the same thing as it does in Italian, but across other romance languages there is another level of semantic distinction. In Italian 'calzoni' these days means 'trousers', but in Spanish 'calzón' means 'underpants'. Even in languages developed later from these Romance languages don't always retain the meanings, with this distinction seen in the Papiamento word for trousers 'kalzon', taken from the Spanish 'calzón' (underpants).