2799: You Say Tomato… Aug 19, 2024

Some say tomáto, and some say tomāto, as it were, but there were several other important terms for it that have left their mark in small corners, here and there.

Given how newly introduced—relatively speaking—the tomato was introduced into Old World, it is unsurprising that most European languages have a similar word for it, but it's even more common than other words for new-world foods like potatoes, and maize (both Taino words originally) squashes, and beans. 

On the other hand, while many languages, especially around coalesced around something like ‘tomato’ (from Nahuatl ‘tomatl’), there were many other terms that cropped up including “wolf peach”, which is actually where the scientific name comes from “Solanum lycopersicum” from “lyco-” (c.f. ‘Lycanthrope’; lupine) and ‘persicus’ (peach) literally meaning ‘of Persia’. This didn’t take off so much, but beyond being the source of the Latin name, it goes along with a long tradition of not eating tomatoes because they were deemed poisonous due to the botanical relation to nightshade (same genus). 

Another name for them, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was “love apples” or variations thereof like German Liebesapfel, which is probably from a later association with the tomato as an aphrodisiac. This is why in Hebrew it is known as עגבניה (agvania) from the root ע-ג-ב also meaning ‘lust’ and ‘buttocks’, even though most other languages moved past this older term. 

There is another, less likely, theory, that this term developed since in Spanish it was called “pomi dei mori” (apple of the Moors) based off a misunderstanding of the Italian “pomi d’oro” (golden apple) in reference to its color—not being so ubiquitously red like now—and that it was misunderstood in French as “pomme d’amour” (apple of love) but this would be far more unlikely.

2798: Dinosaur Suffixes Aug 18, 2024

The typical ending of dinosaur names is -saur(us) meaning ‘lizard’, and will be the default if there is no other intention behind the name, but this is not the only ending. Usually, these will be physical descriptions using some variation on Greek or else Latin. For instance:

•-mimus (e.g. Ornithomimus; Gallimimus) means “looks like”, related to ‘mime’. Here “looks like a bird” and “looks like a chicken” respectively.

•-onychus (e.g. Deinonychus) means ‘claw’. Here it has the same prefix as ‘dino’ for “terrible claw”.

•-raptor (e.g. Oviraptor) meaning ‘thief’, related to ‘rapture’, ‘raptor’ etc.. Here meaning “egg-taker”. 

•-odon/anodon (e.g. Pteranodon) meaning “tooth/toothless” respectively, here meaning “winged toothless”. 

There are exceptions where there is use of a common ending, but the first element is not from Greek or Latin, like Utahraptor which was discovered in Utah but of course does not mean “Utah thief”. This is pretty common in modern scientific names to throw out the real system and just name after modern things, from new animals to elements on the periodic table (e.g. Einsteinium) but one of the first ever fossils discovered in 1825 was that of ‘Iguanodon’ meaning ‘tooth of an Iguana’ due to the structural similarity. These names are also not particularly rigorously scientific, with Basilosaurus not being a lizard at all, but a mammalian whale-type creature, though the name hasn’t changed.

2797: Doublets of Spatha Aug 17, 2024

The terms "spade," "spatula," "epaulet," "spasm," and "espalier" all originate from the Latin root "spatha," which means "broad, flat tool or weapon." This Latin root itself is derived from the Greek "spathe," referring to a flat blade or paddle.

The word "spade" evolved from the Old English "spadu," which denoted a digging tool. "Spatula," derived from the Latin "spatula," is a diminutive form of "spatha," originally referring to a small flat instrument. The term "epaulet" comes from the French "épaulette," meaning "little shoulder," and initially described the flat ornamental shoulder piece on military uniforms. "Spasm," rooted in the Greek "spasmos," meaning a sudden, involuntary muscular contraction, is conceptually linked to the flat, blade-like appearance of contracting muscles. Finally, "espalier," from the Italian "spalliera" and Latin "spatula," refers to the flat, two-dimensional technique of training plants to grow against a support.

2796: Eye-Dialects Aug 16, 2024

English is notoriously internally inconsistent when it comes to what spelling corresponds to which sound, usually, though by no means exclusively, concerning the vowels. Even in languages with so-called phonetic writing, in practice this only means that there is internal consistency with the sounds as they match spelling, but not that it realistically matches how people speak, especially when it comes to minority dialects of a standard language. 

An eye-dialect is the term for when people write in a (semi-)phonological way to match the dialect. This often takes the form of replacing only key words that would vary dialect-to-dialect, but not ones that are less indicative. For example, [see picture] this is a tweet in the “Scottish twitter” style where people commonly write to the way they sound, but the majority of the words will retain their standard spelling.

Eye-dialects, named as such because the dialect exists to the ear, as it were, but only through this modified spelling will appear the same to the eye, can be used for regional dialects or sociolects, like African-American English alike. Because these are not standard, but still rely on spelling standards in most cases, the degree to which the words are modified along with which words are modified in the first place, varies widely.

2795: Googol Aug 15, 2024

The term "googol" was coined in 1920 by Milton Sirotta, the nine-year-old nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. Kasner asked his nephew to come up with a name for the incredibly large number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. The playful term "googol" was chosen to illustrate the difference between an unimaginably large number and infinity, which cannot be represented by any specific numeral. This imaginative exercise helped popularize the concept and the name, highlighting how human language can capture abstract mathematical ideas.

Building on the concept of a googol, Kasner later introduced "googolplex," a number even more mind-bogglingly vast: 1 followed by a googol zeros. The name "googolplex" was designed to express the sheer size of the number, suggesting an endless stretch of zeros. These terms have since transcended their mathematical origins, inspiring names in the tech industry, most notably the search engine giant "Google." The playful etymology of googol and googolplex underscores the power of language to make complex mathematical concepts accessible and memorable.

2794: Learned Borrowing Aug 14, 2024

There are many borrowed words in English, as in just about every other language, but not all borrowings are created equal. Regular semantic loans occur for various reasons, including cross-cultural contact, new technology, and more. However, “learned borrowing” refers to the deliberate incorporation of words from one language into another, often with minimal adaptation, typically through scholarly, scientific, or literary contexts. This can include legal terms, scientific nomenclature, and other specialized vocabulary.

Unlike regular semantic borrowing, where words are adapted and integrated into the vernacular language over time, learned borrowings are often introduced directly by educated speakers or writers to convey precise meanings, usually retaining their original form and pronunciation. For this reason, they tend to be less affected by the borrowing language’s phonology and grammar (e.g., “surgeon general”). These words and phrases can also take on a dimension where they are commonly used but not always understood in literal terms. For instance, in legal contexts, people may know the content of habeas corpus without knowing its literal meaning, “you will have the body” (i.e., a person can be brought before a court). Similarly, et cetera literally means “and others,” but most people know it only contextually. Sometimes, learned borrowings also become part of everyday language, as in the case of the suffix-turned-word, -phobia, which is now commonly used well beyond its original medical scope.

In European languages, Latin—and to a lesser extent, Greek—occupies a significant role in these more formal registers, leading to many instances of doublets and reborrowings, where older words have evolved over time only to be borrowed again later.

2793: Internet Troll Aug 13, 2024

Internet trolls may be frustrating to deal with to the point that they come across like the beasts of Scandinavian fantasy or elsewhere around European folklore, but the terms are actually unrelated. 

There are several older, Germanic roots that have all converged on the modern spelling and pronunciation, including the folklore beast, and troll as in ‘wander’ (pretty rare), related to ‘trull’, and also ‘troll’ as in a fishing lure. It is the latter sense where the Internet trolls’ name comes from insofar as they set bait for people to react angrily. It was almost certainly influenced from the monster—large, brutish being that lives in isolated areas such as caves or mountains—but this was not the origin per se.

2792: Coding Tone in Text Aug 12, 2024

The means of writing have only ever gotten more complex, graphically speaking, as writers try to make words on a page more like speech. Ancient writing lacked punctuation and didn’t even have spaces; the form of writing did not take on a significance unto itself. This continued for a long time, including when italics were invented (in Italy, hence the name) simply to be able to fit more rows of text onto a page, and to mimic cursive style writing. This was not a version of roman letters, but its own font, until it was eventually merged. Historically, even in pieces with both italics and roman typeface, such as when the former is used the introduction to a book, this is not for emphasis but still meant to make a visual break from the main text.

Any dichotomy in writing choices have typically led to meaningful subtextual changes, as happened when italics were applied for emphasis or stress on individual words, seen as early as the 16th century. This is also different to, say, bold lettering too, which is designed to draw the eye to it without needing to read, whereas italics more subtly gives visual emphasis as the eye scans over it in the course of reading. 

While italics have been in use for a long time now, even with this later utility being accepted in formal writing, the Internet has accelerated other binary style choices for subtextual uses. All-uppercase not only offers visual emphasis, but conveys excitability, like a feeling of anger or surprise, originally born of technical limitations. Of course, this is all in addition to punctuation, but that does not inherently carry the same emotional weight, so the following are all different in practice:

What?

What?

WHAT?

2791: Marzipan Aug 11, 2024

The confectionary treat, marzipan, in French is known as massepain, clearly influenced by the French word ‘pain’, meaning ‘bread’. Of course, this isn’t bready or even glutenous. Indeed, the fact that lots of European languages words for it has a [p] is due to this association, but it probably came via Arabic which doesn’t even have the [p] sound, and the word was Arabic مَرْطَبَان (martaban), though here it meant ‘spice box’. This in turn comes from the name of a Burmese port of the same name, Martaban, now known as မုတ္ထမ (muthta'ma) which was a famous port for spices. 

While this all would give a reason for the name and sound changes along the way, it’s actually not really clear. The meaning change from Arabic into European languages, first introduced into Venetian by their merchants, is surprising, especially as it is made almost entirely of almonds, not spices. However that is not the only place the sense of 'box' comes in with this etymology. 

Another theory focuses more on the Italian 'marzapane', meaning "candy box" (probably), from Medieval Latin 'matapanus', which referred to a coin with various religious iconography, including a depiction of St. Mark. The exact origin of the Latin word is uncertain, though it was altered in Italian through folk etymology to resemble "Marci panis," meaning "bread of Mark". There is also a theory, or really an extension to this same theory, suggesting a link to the Arabic مَثْبَن‎ (mawthaban), meaning "king who sits still", but between the two theories covered here, that step is the least widely accepted.

2790: Plimsoll Aug 10, 2024

The term ‘plimsoll’, referring to a type of lightweight, rubber-soled shoe popular in the UK, has its origins in maritime history. It is named after the Plimsoll line, a safety mark on ships introduced by British politician Samuel Plimsoll in the 1870s to prevent overloading, when a common practice was to deliberately overload ships to get more cargo, backed by often inflated insurance claims in the event they sank. This line marked the maximum safe loading level, ensuring that ships remained stable and buoyant. The design of early plimsoll shoes featured a horizontal band between the canvas upper and the rubber sole, resembling the Plimsoll line. This similarity in appearance and function, as both aimed to keep water out, led to the shoes being colloquially known as ‘plimsolls’.

Plimsolls gained popularity in the early 20th century, particularly in British schools and sports, due to their simplicity, comfort, and especially affordability, cementing the name as now predominantly related to footwear.

2789: Austronesian Language History Aug 9, 2024

After Indo-European languages, which originally spanned from Europe’s Atlantic coast to northern India and now cover all continents, Austronesian languages form the second-largest language family in the world. While it might seem that the vast distances between Pacific islands contributed to this diversity, the true story is more complex.

For example, the many languages spoken from Papua New Guinea to New Zealand to Hawaii, and all other islands within this triangle, belong to a single branch of the Austronesian languages—the Oceanic family. The greatest diversity within this branch is found in Eastern Papua. In contrast, Taiwan alone hosts 9 of the total 14 Austronesian subfamilies. This island was the homeland of the seafaring Polynesian people before Chinese colonization. As a result, the hundreds of languages spoken in eastern and central Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines, and Malaysia (i.e., the Western Malayo-Polynesian languages) are more closely related to each other than the fewer native languages of Taiwan are to one another.

While it might be tempting to attribute this linguistic diversity to mountainous topography, mountains are not more of a barrier to contact than thousands of miles of open ocean. Instead, time is a more relevant factor.

Although many factors contribute to language change—and there is no single formula—it is often the case that greater distance from the origin results in less linguistic diversity. For example, American English is broadly more conservative (i.e., it has changed less) than British English since the early colonial period, similar to the story of Austronesian languages. Likewise, Icelandic is much closer to Old Norse and Old English than modern Norwegian or English are. On the other hand, language change accelerates when there is contact between different peoples, as seen in the transition from Dutch to Afrikaans, which is far less conservative.

2788: Deadline [updated] Aug 8, 2024

Some phrases don’t have any connection to their original meanings because the words change, or lose meaning, but sometimes it is just a language shift based off of nothing in particular. The phrase ‘deadline’ does indeed come from the words “dead + line”, and was popularized after the American Civil War, especially from the unimaginably bad conditions of Andersonville prison where—critically undersupplied—it was easier to make a crude fence beyond which anyone attempting even to place a hand would be shot on site rather than to construct a proper wall. This was not the origin of the phrase, but, even scarcely used, was the dominant source of the phrase in the 19th century.

It was revived in the early 20th century in the printing industry for newspapers, denoting the space past which text would not be printed in the margins. Although it is not clear how, this translated into the sense of “due-date / time-limit” probably referring to filling the page up to the margins.

2787: Blue Dog Democrat Aug 7, 2024

The term "Blue Dog Democrat" would easily evoke the Democratic Party's modern association with the color blue, especially in light of spin-off terms like “Red Dog Republicans” etc., but it's worth noting that the association of blue with the Democratic Party and red with the Republican Party didn't become standardized until the 2000 presidential election. Before that, media outlets often switched the colors depending on the election cycle. 

The term "Blue Dog Democrat" refers to more conservative Democrats who sought to distance themselves from the party's liberal wing, but why "blue dog"?

In the early 1990s, these moderate Democrats often met in the office of Texas Representative Pete Geren. Geren's office was adorned with a peculiar painting by Louisiana artist George Rodrigue, featuring a blue dog—a recurring motif in Rodrigue's work. This particular painting, with its distinctive and surreal blue dog, became an unlikely mascot for the group.

As these moderate Democrats worked to carve out a centrist space in American politics, they began to refer to themselves informally as "Blue Dog Democrats," drawing inspiration from the blue dog painting that had overseen many of their meetings, predating the overall association between the Democratic Party and blue. 

2786: Pepperoni Aug 6, 2024

Much like many of America's immigrant food traditions, pepperoni pizza only bares slight resemblance to any original sausage, or for that matter any pizza, that would be found in Italy. There are many pieces of evidence that pepperoni is not authentically Italian, including its ingredients and that it is not made with a natural casing, the clearest signal is that the word ‘pepperoni’ means nothing in Italian; although ‘peperone’ (with a different spelling) does mean ‘bell pepper’ in Italian, it is not made with bell pepper. 

2785: Console Aug 5, 2024

While video games may give emotional comfort to some, a gaming console does not really have anything to do with consolation in the typical, emotional sense. However, rather than one being a modern divergence, both of these senses are divergences from the original.

A console is a tool from architecture, a type of bracket used to support a structure above, typically seen below balconies for example. Later, this was applied to other things, such as support underneath a wall-mounted table, like a kitchen counter for example. Eventually, in the 19th century other operational systems also stored away began to be referred to, such as an organ console and eventually electronic consoles in the 20th century, both denoting the control system. Now ‘gaming console’ does not really denote anything that’s hidden or structural.

The emotional sense developed similarly, and significantly earlier, in the sense that ‘support’ too can be physical or of emotional comfort.

2784: Bugs Bug Engineers August 4, 2024

The popular tale of the term ‘bug’ in the context of technical glitches often centers around an incident involving early machine encountering problems caused by an actual insect. One involved a story of a bug getting caught in some factory machine, and another version of this tale involves computing pioneer Grace Hopper, who, according to legend, in 1947, found a moth trapped in a relay of the Harvard Mark II, causing an error. Neither of these are true, and moreover the team at harvard even noted the incident in their logbook as the "first actual case of bug being found", implying that the term was already in popular.

In reality, the term "bug" has been used to describe mechanical malfunctions since at least the 19th century. Engineers and inventors, including Thomas Edison, referred to unexpected flaws or problems in their inventions as ‘bugs’. This usage probably stems from the general meaning of ‘bug’ as an unseen, troublesome creature or nuisance. Although a software bug is now the more common word, especially given how much more bug-prone code can be than traditional 19th century mechanics, its origins were not so serendipitous as the stories

2783: How ‘Handle’ and ‘Fifth’ Became Metric Aug 3, 2024

There are certain measurements in imperial or US customary units that are only used in specific contexts, like knots (1 nautical mile per hour), while some others are only used in certain contexts by habit. A ‘fifth’ is a common measurement for alcoholic drinks, its name coming from being a ⅕ of a gallon, and likewise a ‘handle’ is ½ a gallon or in other words 2 quarts. These are now officially defined, even in the US that does not use the metric system, as 750mL (instead of ~757mL) and 1.75L respectively. This makes a fifth and a handle metric terms, even though they are not SI units.

2782: Sugar: (Why the SH)? Aug 2, 2024

The pronunciation of ‘sugar’ with an initial [ʃ] "sh" sound and a [g] as opposed to [k] sound common in most other languages is a result of internal shifts. In English, the pronunciation deviated from its spelling due to the Great Vowel Shift and other phonological changes during the Middle English period. Unlike French, where "sucre" maintained its straightforward phonetic structure, English underwent shifts where certain "s" sounds followed by a "u" began to be pronounced as [ʃ] "sh," a process seen in other words like ‘sure’ and ‘pressure’. Moreover, while most languages take their words for sugar from Arabic, there was an earlier form that Arabic borrowed from Persian ‘shakar’, so while there would be precedent, this is not relevant.

The [g], as opposed to [k] sound is to do with stress. That is to say, when a syllable is unstressed and at the end of a word, it is the least likely to be in what linguists would call the “area of accuracy” and since the R is voiced (i.e. engages the vocal cords), the [k] also becomes voiced as [g].

2781: Red and Black Seas: Color and Cardinal Direction Aug 1, 2024

Historically, and found in many disparate cultures around the globe, there have been associations between cardinal directions, and colors, namely

Red = South

Black = North

White = West

Green/Blue = East

Yellow = Center

This is not to say that people would say “you need to travel red for 10 miles” but rather it shows up in a plethora of place names. For instance, both the names of the Red Sea and the Black Sea come from the perspective of the Greek and those in the Near East, along with the White Sea in Wester Russia. Belarus literally means ‘white Russia’ with there historically having been others including ‘black Russia’ referring to the Baltic states to the north. 

The Mongol hordes were named for colors relative to where they were: Blue, White, and of course the Golden Horde.

Of course, this is not always so cut-and-dry. In China, there is the Yellow River that flows eastward into the Yellow Sea was the most vital, central waterway of early China, but whether this is related to this historic tradition, or whether this is a reference to the water’s murkiness—or possibly some combination—would be hard to prove on its own.

2780: Jack and Gill: of Liquid Jul 31, 2024

In SI units, there are certain standards by which measurements’ names are converted or not, so 100 grams technically converts to 1 hectogram, but you will never see this, and you would be more likely to hear 100,000 milligrams or 0.1 kilograms. This is also officially done in US customary units and unofficially in the imperial system.

For instance, ½ a cup* is almost always denoted as such, but may be referred to as a gill, particularly in measuring liquids like alcoholic drinks especially. Despite its orthographic similarity to ‘gill’ as in “of a fish”, it is pronounced /d͡ʒɪl/, extra proof of which is that ½ of a gill is a jack. You might assume that this was formed as a pun based on the nursery rhyme, but it was the other way around; the poetic words are in reference to King Charles I lowering the volume of a jack in 1625 in order to collect more on taxes, which then by definition made gill smaller, or in other words come tumbling after. The earliest, 17th century versions of the rhyme indeed use the spelling of ‘Gill’ and not ‘Jill’ as most would write it today.

*Very technically, a gill is ¼ of a pint, as pints are the basis of the system, but this is equal to ½ a cup.