2747: Layered Idioms Jun 28, 2024

The word phrase is pretty generic, but an idiom is a type of phrase where the literal meaning of the words together could not indicate the meaning of the phrase. Because of the inherently indiscernible nature of idioms, they commonly pop up as euphemisms, obscuring a darker or more taboo topic. In the case of “bucket list” (i.e. things to do before one dies), this is a euphemistic idiom built upon another, namely “kick the bucket” [to die]. “Bucket list” is a fairly modern term staying true to its origins, but as with many old idioms “kicking the bucket” has obscured the original meaning of the component words, here that it was not ‘bucket’, but rather the French ‘buquet’, a device used to hold pigs in place to slaughter them.

2746: Brave and Barbarous Jun 27, 2024

English has lots of pairs of words that are doublets (i.e. have the same etymology) but are also antonyms. One example would be host-guest, but another comes from the words ‘brave’ and ‘barbarian’. While these words aren’t opposites per se, the former denotes righteousness and courage while the latter connotes incivility. ‘Barbarian’ originates from a Greek onomatopoeia, but this eventually morphed, along with influence from the Latin ‘prāvus’ (crooked), the source of the English ‘depraved’ to form ‘bravus’, thence ‘bravo’ meaning ‘bold’ or ‘showing off’, and also ‘skilled’ which did not carry over into English. This can help to understand the sense of ‘bravo’ at a time of applause, or even its historic meaning of ‘swordsman’. 

It was only later into the 15th century that the sense in Italian ‘bravo’ was changed in French ‘brave’ to go from ‘wild’ to ‘courageous’ and eventually ‘valiant’ which English adopted thereafter.

2745: Stop Sign Politics Jun 26, 2024

Language is obviously a tool for communication, but it can indicate a lot more about a culture too. In France, the stop-signs read STOP inside an octagon exactly as it is in the US and UK and is one of the view traffic signs with words the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals instructs. In Quebec, the stop signs are sometimes bilingual English-French, or elsewhere also with an indigenous language of Cree of Inuktitut, but they typically appear solely with the French word ARRÊT, which is not used in France itself. Plenty of countries have bilingual versions even when the second language is not official, like Armenia or many Arab nations that also uses English, but naturally in bilingual regions, the will to assert the language as dominant, as in Quebec, is evidently greater than in largely monolingual areas where the language is more secure. 

Given that a mere handful of countries use anything other than the red octagon as the basis of the stop sign, the words themselves may be basically irrelevant—some countries forgo any altogether—but the cultural assertion is also a significant factor on its own.

2744: An Abysmal, Bottomless Pit Jun 25, 2024

The word ‘abyss’ is related to ‘abysmal’, perhaps unsurprisingly, though in practice they are not so closely connected. ‘Abyss’ refers to a bottomless pit of mythological significance, from the Ancient Greek ἄβυσσος (ábussos) for ‘bottomless’, confusingly derived from, from ἀ- (a-) “not” + βυσσός (bussós) for “deep place” but here it is not negated entirely but rather intensified, i.e. a “not merely deep place”. Lots of cultures have a similar type word, like Old English’s neowolnes comparable to ‘nether’ for something like “depth; lowness”.

The -M- in ‘abysmal’, which was the typical adjectival form of ‘abyss’ historically, uses another version of the word from Latin, which actually led to another, no longer used English word ‘abysm’ from the Latin superlative ending -imus, like the difference from “bravo → bravissimo” borrowed from Italian. Here, though literally meaningless (i.e. “most bottomless place” isn’t semantically sensible), it acts as an intensifier leading to the figurative use ‘abysmal’ has today of just meaning “very bad”. As such, the current adjectival form of ‘abyss’ is ‘abyssal’ that does not carry the figurative meaning.

2743: Semantic Loan Words Jun 24, 2024

Calques are a type of loan, where a foreign word (or usually phrase) is translated word-for-word using native terms. A famously ironic example is that ‘loanword’ is a calque from the German „Lehnwort“, while ‘calque’ is a loanword from French. 

The more general term though, semantic borrowing (or loaning), applies not just to phrases or compounds translated word-for-word, but when any native term gains additional connotations from use in another language. For instance, the English ‘star’ is both astronomical & used to describe celebrity, & this latter use is seen now in other languages like Hebrew, e.g.  Israel’s version of Dancing with the Stars, רוקדים עם כוכבים (rokdim im cokhavim). Another example is the French extension of the word «souris» meaning ‘mouse’ to apply also to the computer mouse. 

Semantic loans in general, as opposed to the more specific calques, are often hard to prove, because the sentence structure and vocabulary can be entirely normal, native language. The number of semantic loans will certainly increase due to the spread of culture on TV & the Internet, etc., but language’s inherently memetic quality can make it difficult to discern a specific connotation’s origin. 

2742: Wish on a Star Jun 23, 2024

People may wish on stars or have high hopes now, but this sort of thing was certainly more pronounced in the past. The word ‘desire’ for instance comes from the Latin phrase ‘de- + sidus’ (from the star), and while it certainly had an astrological connotation, the meaning was slightly different than in English; the verb dēsīderō could mean ‘I desire’ but also ‘I miss/regret’. Indeed, this meaning is carried over into the word ‘desiderate’ that unsurprisingly comes from this root, also leading to ‘consider’ though it is less clear how this relates to stars. It could be that cōnsīderō, meaning ‘I examine’ related to observing constellations, but does not carry the same emotional significance as ‘desire’. 

2741: Regression Below the Mean Jun 21, 2024

Getting 3 out of every 4 questions correct on a test still only earns one a C grade, and getting merely average isn’t viewed so highly. This might lend an insight into how words like ‘mediocre’ come to gain explicitly negative connotations, here of not meeting expectations, when the word in Latin mediocris meant “of middle height or degree”, literally “somewhat mountainous” from ‘medias’ (middle). The same would be true of describing something as ‘fine’, ‘run of the mill’, ‘middle of the road’, ‘average’ or even saying ‘above average’ in common conversation are not practically compliments, and while not explicitly negative either, they convey some disappointment. This is seen across history and language. 

2740: Taser: An Acronym with a Surprising Story Jun 21, 2024

The word ‘taser’ is from a children’s story published in 1911, sort of. The word ‘taser’ is an acronym, and clearly designed on the pattern of ‘maser’ and ‘laser’ (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), but for a very different reason. It is not named for its function nor for its inventor, Jack Cover), but rather a book he enjoyed Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle, by Victor Appleton (a publishing house’s pseudonym), which involved some science fiction type inventions including the electric rifle. Originally rendered TSER, the -A- was added for ease of pronunciation.

2739: What’s the Story with Story? Jun 20, 2024

The word ‘story’ is mostly used to describe some telling of a tale, but it is also used to describe the level of a building, sometimes spelt ‘storey’ in this sense. The use as “personal account” is fairly easy to understand, from the same root as ‘history’, though the meaning has somewhat flipped from the Greek ῐ̔στορέω (historéō) meaning “to inquire/ to ask”, and likewise the noun ἱστορίᾱ (historíā) that became “history” meant, “learning through research”. Like ‘philosophy’, it once had a far more general meaning, but here it began to refer to the description of research as opposed to simply the research by itself. 

When it comes to the story of a building, this is less clear.  This may have had something to do with art depicted in friezes and murals, or as historical objects displayed behind glass panels. From this, it became associated with a set of windows and eventually a level of a house, measured in windows. While it may be tempting to ascribe this to the French ‘estorer’ (to build), the sense of ‘story’ (or really ‘historia’) as building level predates this French word’s introduction to English.

2738: Ultraviolet and Ultramarine Jun 19, 2024

Ultraviolet, though not a color in the traditional sense, is named for being “beyond violet” on the color spectrum, though there are other colors colloquially named with ‘ultra-’. Meanwhile, ‘ultramarine’ is a form of blue, though not exactly a shade or hue, that you might think might mean ‘intensely sea-blue’. First of all, that meaning of ‘ultra-’ is fairly modern, but more to the point it was named for the material lapis lazuli, also known as ‘azure’ from the same root. It was procured primarily from Central Asia, so to Europeans it was “(azzurro) oltramarino”, or translated from Italian “(azure) from overseas”. The name stuck around and now applies to a particular hue, “ultramarine blue”, now virtually never made from the stone.

2737: Paper: How Papyrus has Changed Jun 18, 2024

Although papyrus writing is all but unheard of today, the legacy still lives on in the word ‘paper’. More accurately, it was not a later revival after the use of wood pulp in papermaking, but a continuously used term. In fact, the word ‘papyrus’ as it refers to the material as opposed to merely the plant was a later invention in English based off the original Greek, in the 18th century. While there have been other materials in use, notably parchment and linen, the generic use of paper can still be seen in ‘paper money’, which has never been made from wood pulp. This is an example of semantic narrowing, where a word’s meaning begins to exclude connotations it once had, where ‘paper’ has become a material, rather than any writing surface.

2736: Port and Starboard Jun 17, 2024

On a ship, “port and starboard” refer to the left and right, relative to the direction the boat is facing. While it is clear why these terms are more useful than “left and right” as people move around the ship, it would not immediately be clear why in particular. ‘Starboard’ has been modified somewhat since Old English stēorbord (i.e. “steer board”), but this is the side old rutters emerged from the water on, to make it easier for majority right-handed steerers. Port is named from the ancient convention of boarding on this side of the ship, since a dock would need to pick one, and this became the norm everywhere, with this convention carrying over into modern passenger aircraft, so have a look next time you’re at the airport.

2735: Crocodile Spelling Reform Jun 16, 2024

Spelling and pronunciation are often brought into English from Latin, though of course this historical, multilingual game of telephone brought along with it many bugs. 'Crocodile' was for a long time rendered as 'cocodrile', an error made in later forms of Latin that transferred into French and adopted into English. It was brought back to 'crocodile' based off of the Greek κροκόδειλος (krokó-deilos), itself meaning 'rock + worm'. In Ancient Indo-European languages there is a clear relation between rocks and sitting reptiles, perhaps because of their tendency to sit on rocks. This etymology would not be immediately evident to the average Middle English speaker, nor modern for that matter, but in the later years of the renaissance there was a concerted effort to bring English spelling in line with that of Latin and Greek, and at least in this case it managed to affect the pronunciation, compared with other words like ‘salmon’ where the L was added but the pronunciation never differed.

2734: Regnal Names Jun 15, 2024

Around Europe, there is a tradition of monarchs changing their names when ascending the throne, known as regnal names. This practice is certainly on the decline among European royalty, but is still in practice in Papal names, including the modern Catholic Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario, and no pope has kept his birth name since the 16th century. This practice began with Pope John II, born Mercurius, and he didn’t want to be named for a Roman, pagan, deity as pope, though this did happen with all six popes, Martin (including Martinus and Marinus). 

In regnal names, though now less common among European royalty in the last century, it was never only a European practice, being seen across Africa, East Asia, and the ancient Near East. The reasons vary, including cultures of naming taboos, implied association or dissociation with previous rulers, or simply to mark the beginning of a reign, this practice has been uniquely adopted all over the world.

2733: A Double-Minced Oath Jun 15, 2024

Though not so popular these days, the phrase “what in tarnation” is one of many minced oaths, or in other words, a replacement for a more serious or potentially blasphemous term, along with ‘gosh’, ‘gadzooks’, and sort of “gordon bennett”. The difference here is that ‘tarnation’ is a mince of ‘darnation’, which is already a mince of ‘damnation’. The difference here is that first of all, darnation was never a very popular word compared to simply ‘darn’, and was reinforced by the word ‘tarnal’, a modification of the word ‘eternal’ that had some popularity in the 19th century. Now the phrase is pretty much limited to humorous usage, and is certainly associated with the old American West.

2732: How Society Has Come to View Generations Jun 13, 2024

The “Lost Generation” preceded the “Silent Generation”, but what generation preceded them? The answer is that there are no generational names earlier than this because it is a very new practice of breaking up and naming generations is really very new. Naturally, there had been plenty of momentous events throughout history that shaped society in sudden ways, but it was only after WWI that the collective experience of everyone born in a narrow set of years was classed as a generation. Before this, ‘generation’ only denoted the lines in a particular family.

Sometimes these social-generations will be based on an event, such as those above and the post-WWII baby boom (hence boomers) but increasingly the naming of generations is not ex post facto, but anticipated every fifteen years or so. 

In recent decades a flurry of names are selected for each generation until one sticks. After “baby boomers” named for the postwar baby boom came the “baby busters”—denoting the subsequent drop in fertility—until this was replaced with “Gen X”. That particular name came from the use of X as an undefined variable like in algebra, supposedly denoting the counterculture’s anti-definition approach, but was taken to be alphabetical. It was then applied to “Gen Y” (eventually replaced by “millennial”) and “Gen Z”, which was also early on called “iGeneration” but that didn’t stick nor did the i-names in technology, really.

Following this people have come up with “Generation α” (i.e. ‘alpha’), still supposing the earlier Gen X was alphabetical and now restarting with a new alphabet. It has really only been from the mid-1960’s then that social generations became taken as a matter of course, as opposed to the earlier albeit relatively novel event-based delineations.

2731: Sprite (Soda) Jun 12, 2024

 Coca-Cola has in its 137 years of operation acquired many brands, but it’s also started many. Fanta was famously created when wartime Germany was unable to import the cola syrup and is named for the German ‘Fantasie’ (imagination), but even the Sprite drink also has older origins than its initial 1961 launch. Nearly two decades before that, Coca-Cola’s mascot was Sprite Boy, who was a traditional sprite in the mythological sense, used for an ad campaign promoting the nickname “coke”, phased out in 1951. When they launched a new soda type to compete with 7-Up, they reused the name, but not the image, of this older mascot, likely harkening back to that, and perhaps sprites’ other connotation with high energy, hence ‘spritely’.

2730: Aramaic Has Multiple Ways of Saying “There is [/not]” Jun 11, 2024

Hebrew does not have a verb meaning ‘to have’ like many other languages, so rather it uses a verb meaning “there is” (יש yesh) or “there isn’t” (אין ein), plus a dative to express possession, so אין לנו (ein lanu) literally “there is not to us” means “we don’t have”. Of course, these words can also just refer to existence, like in אין מקום (ein makom) “there is no room”, not just possession.

This duality is further complicated in Aramaic, the closest related language to Hebrew, with the forms אית (it) and איכא (ika) both meaning “there is” while לית (leit) and ליכא (leika) each mean “there isn’t”. While this might look more linguistically diverse, it’s not exactly the case, since אית (it) is the basis for all of those words. איכא (ika), the other positive word, comes from a combination אית כא (it ka) for “it is here; it is so”. The negative words are also compounds likewise with לית (leit) coming from  לא אית (lo it) with לא meaning “no; not” (i.e. “there is not”) , and the other negative form, ליכא (leika), also combining with כא (“here; thus”) to make “there is not”. While Aramaic has two forms for these positive and negative particles, instead of Hebrew’s one each, there is not a particular meaningful difference.

2729: The Real Panda Jun 10, 2024

The word ‘panda’ originally comes from a Nepalese word, which is interesting on its own since the historical range of pandas ends well south of Nepal. This is because the original term ‘panda’ did not denote the giant panda, but rather the totally unrelated red panda. The term has also been applied historically to the bearcat, similarly to the Chinese 大貓熊 (dàmāoxióng) “giant bear cat” or just 熊貓 (xióngmāo) “bear cat”. This is why the term is “giant panda”—giant compared to a red panda—but most people will simply say “panda”, assuming the red panda was named later, when it was described using the term ‘panda’ some four decades earlier.

2728: (Un)Holy Alliance Jun 9, 2024

The phrase “unholy alliance” may seem like it would be a combination of unholy + alliance, but really it is un- + holy alliance. The term Holy Alliance specifically refers to the somewhat informal alliance between Russia, Prussia, and Austria during the negotiations following Napoleon's defeat. Though their goal was to promote a Christian approach to statecraft as a counter to France’s rationalist, enlightenment ideology that spread across Europe, though of course Prussia was Protestant, Austria, Catholic, and Russia, Eastern Orthodox.

This resulted in the Unholy Alliance of Western European nations along with the Muslim, Ottoman Empire, particularly against Russian interests. This phrase had already been generalized to mean “an alliance of powers for negative purposes and/or whose interests usually misalign” by the start of the 20th century, which does essentially view the phrase as unholy + alliance, and its uses now go outside the realm of politics solely. Meanwhile the term “holy alliance” is not used at all outside of its early 19th century context.