2640: douglas Mar 10, 2022
The name Douglas is a common last name and first name, which is a typical development of many Celtic surnames. It is, somewhat surprisingly at first glance, related to 'Dublin', and probably doesn't sound very nice either given its meaning in Scots Gaelic (dubh glas) is 'black/dark stream', but this is almost certainly just a topographical description of some marshy area of Scotland.
2639: Ladino Use for Solitario (Extra Hebrew Diacritics) Mar 9, 2022
Solitario and Rashi script uses diacritics for sounds not represented in a script normally intended for Hebrew. This is also the case in modern Hebrew writing, but not as much in Yiddish, which used digraphs etc., possible inspired by German which has many of the same. Presently, Hebrew only has one digraph, which is נג <ng> like it is found in English, German, and Yiddish for the [ŋ] sound. In Solitario used for Ladino, this was not the convention, and diacritics were added to letters. For instance, the [dʒ] sound in the word 'Jump' or 'Giraffe' is written ג׳ or גﬞ from the basic ג [g], but in Yiddish this is written -דזש <dzsh>. The only similarity between Ladino and Yiddish conventions when it comes to non-Hebrew sounds is that Yiddish also used פֿ to represent [f] as opposed to [p].
Overall, not including the ones used in Biblical Hebrew (of which there would be an additional 5), Solitario used the added forms:
זﬞ for [ʒ] (like 'viSion' or French 'Je')
טﬞ for [θ] as in 'THree'
גﬞ for [dʒ] as in Jump
2638: Solitario Script Mar 8, 2022
For all Hebrew handwriting, it does not look like printed Hebrew exactly but uses its own modern semi cursive handwriting. Like Rashi script, Solitario was a Sephardic semi cursive font used for Spanish, Ladino, and Arabic around the Mediterranean. Unlike the Ashkenazi script which grew out of it in many ways, there are more ligatures (i.e. letters joined together), and there were more diacritics used for sounds not represented in a script normally intended for Hebrew. It is also the ancestor of the modern Israeli Hebrew script, though one could not read Solitario immediately if he only knew modern Hebrew cursive.
2637: Rashi Script Mar 7, 2022
Rashi, perhaps the most famous Jewish biblical commentator, is known for being printed in a font called Rashi script, though he did not write in it himself. For one thing, it was used about four centuries after he wrote, and it is a Sephardic semi-cursive script; Rashi was not Sephardic. A tradition developed where all primary scriptural texts were written in traditional Hebrew block-letters, and all secondary texts like commentaries were in script font. This was eventually standardized into Rashi script, which is still used for many commentaries and translations.
2636: ernten, earn, אַרן Mar 6, 2022
Though the closest language to German is Yiddish, there are many Yiddish words of Germanic origin that do not have similar meanings. For instance, the Yiddish word אַרן (arn) means 'to bother; to be annoyed', but the Modern German 'Ernte' means 'a harvest'. Both of those are also related to the English 'earn'. The root of all of these did likely mean 'harvest; reap; labor', and each word in the different languages sprung off of a different definition. The meaning was kept more literal in German while it meant 'toil' and then just 'be bothersome', whereas in English the idea of 'reaping' and perhaps even 'deserving' is what held.
2635: 'Medicine' in Ojibwe Mar 5, 2022
There are a number of phrases from Native American sources such as Ojibwe and Cree, that use 'medicine' in a way it isn't seen much otherwise to mean 'magic'. Phrases like
Medicine lodge (also known as 'sweat lodge')
Medicine dance
Medicine bag
Medicine wheel
all use this to name a few examples, and there are even a number of place-names that take from these. This is not only because of more old-fashioned views of medicine, but that the Ojibwe word in all of these examples is 'mashkiki' can mean 'medicine' but also 'grass; herbs' and 'drug' not only here but in many Algonquian languages.
2634: Regina, a.k.a. Pile-of-Bones Mar 4, 2022
The capital of Saskatchewan, Canada is called 'Regina', named after Queen Victoria, but the name used to be very different. The original name of the settlement in the 19th century was 'Pile-of-Bones', only renamed from 1882 when it was made the capital of the then-territory. This name is from the Cree 'oskana kâ-asatêki' meaning "the place where bones are piled", because this is where the local tribe would leave bison bones on the flat, arid grounds. In fact, the land is so notably barren, and only useful for laying out bones, that at the time of its settlement it was a clear conflict of interest from the Lieutenant Governor who owned a large plot of that land that became the regional capital.
2633: engage & wed Mar 3, 2022
Thematically an engagement is related to a wedding, one following the other, but the words are linked as well. The word 'wed' from Old English 'weddian' meant 'to pledge', and in many other Germanic languages it denotes betting. It's from the same root as 'wage' which can mean 'pledge' in the sense of commiting to an obligation (to wage war; worker's wages) or committing to a bet (a.k.a. 'wager'). Often a W and G will morphe one to the other, and in Romance languages where 'gage' or more popularly 'engage' were adopted into English from that same root too.
2632: free & friend Mar 2, 2022
Though it's doubtful anyone in the free-love movement would have been aware of it, the word 'free' used to convey a meaning of love. The Old English for 'free' (frēo) is from the Proto-Germanic *frijaz which meant both 'beloved' but also 'unbound', as in literally not enslaved. This is related to 'friend' as well, & in many languages like German, the word for 'friend' and 'lover' are the same one, here 'Freund'.
2631: Names from (Ancient) Latin Regions Mar 1, 2022
There are lots of sources of names, whether those will be from religion, animals, plants, or just qualities. Place-names as given-names is common now with newer locations, but we have at least two names from pre-Roman Italic tribes that are names still. The feminine 'Sabine' which is very popular especially in Western Europe is the name of a tribe that lived in Latium, north west of Rome. Likewise, 'Lucas; Luke' is commonly misunderstood to come directly from the Latin word for 'light' (lux, lucas), and that is somewhat true but it comes from a word meaning "man from Lucania". That was an Oscan-Samnium tribe, though the meaning of that group's name is probably from light, as is was in the east of the peninsula, though even this is not certain and it is possible the name was for woods, rather than light at all.
2631: Demetrius, Demi, & Demeter Feb 28, 2022
There are a number of names, like Demi, Demitri, or Dimitri to identify a few, all come from the same source. These are all based from the Greek harvest deity Δημήτριος (Dēmḗtrios), latinized Demeterius, but as some of you will notice, this name is masculine. Unlike other names like 'Martin' (from 'Mars'), this is because the name refers to a (male) devotee of Demeter, not naming after Demeter herself. Demi, which is traditionally a feminine name, is from Demetria, the same word but for a female follower of the deity.
2630: Obscure Root of Litera Feb 27, 2022
As mentioned, the root of the Latin 'littera', and from it a plethora of words like 'literature', 'literal', 'letter', 'obliterate' even the Finnish word 'littera' meaning 'internationalism' and '[banknote] denomination', all come from this root. The trouble is, past this, the etymology is disputed. Some suggest it is from an earlier word 'lītera', though this form did not even clearly exist. If so, it would have come from a normal vowel lengthening process of 'litus' or a reconstructed Old Latin *leitos, and would have been related to 'linō' meaning 'smear'.
The other prominent idea is that this is from an Etruscan root, which itself is then related to the Ancient Greek διφθέρᾱ (diphthérā) meaning 'writing material', but given as Greek and Etruscan are not related to each other, and would not have such a common source, this link seems tenuous. It could be both, with each word having a certain amount of influence on the final result.
2629: obliterate Feb 26, 2022
The English words 'obliterate' and 'literature' come from the same root. Although 'obliterate' is thought of in a generic way meaning 'total destruction', in a more literal sense it means 'blotting out with ink'. It is for this reason that the French 'oblitération' can mean 'stamp; validate a ticket'. Beyond this the word becomes obscured because the history of the Latin 'littera' is not clear.
2628: Jack Feb 25, 2022
There are a number of card standard decks around the world and while they tend to base the cards in some real thing, those things are also old fashioned in many ways, partly as a result of it all being translated from the French tradition. People know what kings and queens are, but the use of ‘jack’ is somewhat odd in that group. It used be ‘knave’ which was the equivalent to the French ‘valet’ (which is also a loanword in English) meaning ‘servant’ and as with most words with that meaning, also ‘boy’. ‘Jack’ on the other hand came as a nickname from ‘John’ and was used as a term to denote a normal man. Compare this with the French ‘Jacquerie’. Indeed, this word began to denote male animals (jackass; jackrabbit; jacksnipe) and also laborers (lumberjack) and tools therefor (jackhammer; jackknife). It is from this sense as a workman that it replaced ‘knave’ in a deck of cards, and also of course when the cards are abbreviated, having a K for ‘king’ and also Kn for ‘knave’ would be confusing. Despite this gain in clarity, the use of ‘jack’ in place of ‘knave’ was seen as being low-class and did not catch on immediately but one should keep in mind not all decks used indices anyway. ‘Jack’ also began to denote small things, such as ‘naval jack’—a national flag flown on the bow—along with the many uses in tools and games it has.
2627: grenade & pomegranate Feb 24, 2022
Although the only thing explosive about a pomegranate would be if its seeds are saturated with juice, the word 'grenade' comes from the same root as 'pomegranate'. The word is instead a reference to its shape, with a round body and a protruding head. Although the word is French, the spelling with a D by the end instead of a T is influenced from the Spanish 'granada'. This has nothing to do with the Spanish city 'Granada', whose name comes from Arabic.
2626: stout (beer) Feb 23, 2022
The beer called 'stout' bears its name because it is a strong, dark beer. If the term had come out today instead of in the 17th century, it may well have just been called 'a strong'. The root in other Germanic languages means 'proud', like the German 'Stolz', but the definition is different in English due to the euphemistic meaning that replaced the sense of 'proud; haughty' with 'fat' in the Middle Ages, and again in the 14th century with 'strong-bodied'.
2625: 'Capital' in Asian Capital Cities Feb 22, 2022
As seen in ‘Tokyo‘, mentioned yesterday, It is actually a common tradition to include the word and character for 'capital' (京) in the name of Asian capital cities. This same character is pronounced 'jing' in Chinese and is found in other places around modern China. The former capital of Japan, Kyoto (京都) has this, as does Keijō (京城) in South Korea, both meaning 'capital city' in their respective languages. In China there is Beijing (北京) or 'Northern Capital', Nanjing (南京) or 'Southern Capital', and Xijing (西京) or 'Western Capital'. There are plenty more such examples, but this is just a few.
2624: Kyoto & Tokyo Feb 21, 2022
The fact that a former capital (Kyoto) and current capital of Japan (Tokyo) are anagrams is fun, but not so surprising. The original name for Tokyo was Edo, which means 'estuary', owing to the natural geography. During the Meiji Restoration it was changed to Tokyo (東京) from 東 (east) pronounced 'to' and 京 (capital) pronounced 'kyō'. Therefore, Kyoto means the same thing, but in a different order, and the reason that the characters look different (京都) is because this is older and comes from Middle Chinese.
2623: storm Feb 20, 2022
As a noun, 'storm' will usually refer to atmospheric disturbance or other moremetaphirical uses, while as a verb this word denotes a forceful, single-direction push like a military action. This same dichotomy also exists in German, leading to the English calque of 'stormtroops' in WWI from the German 'Sturmtruppen'. The Germanic root found in Old English as well saw both meanings of the atmospheric storm and a more generic 'to attack' without specifically referring to rushing something fortified. Moreover, it had another meaning of 'rage', which isn't as often seen today outside of more poetic uses.
2622: Alkaline & Basic: Why 2 Words Feb 19, 2022
Something that is an alkaline is described as being basic, but this is a totally different root. The reason that a substance's alkalinity is denoted as basic is because 'basic' is the more generic term; all alkalis are basic but not all bases are alkaline. A base will always neutralize an acid creating a salt and water but only alkalis, alkali metal hydroxide specifically, will dissolve in water. Though 'alkali' is only a specific term, originating from Arabic meaning 'the ashes' some of the meanings of 'base' have overlapped with it.