 These days we're all doing our best to talk through masks, so this week ;et's consider the myriad words we have for talking.
The word chatter showed up in English in the 1200s, an echoic term referring to the noise of birds. In less than a century, chatter had broadened to refer to gossiping or twittering (how many modern folk might suggest that Twitter is nothing but gossip?). Today, chatter’s definition is incessant talk of trivial subjects. A lengthy or extravagant speech intended to persuade is called a spiel. It comes from the German word spielen, to play, and showed up in English in the 1870s meaning to play circus music. By the 1890s it began to mean to make a glib speech or pitch. Since the 1400s English speakers have used the verb blab, which came from a Middle English noun meaning one who cannot control his tongue. Our friends at the OED state “the word was exceedingly common in the 16th and 17th c.; unusual in literature since c 1750.” Today blab means to reveal secret matters or chatter indiscriminately. The word prattle, which showed up in the 1530s came from the verb prate, which came from a Middle Dutch word meaning to chatter. Today prattle means to babble meaninglessly. We call a long angry speech, piece of writing, or harangue a screed. This meaning of screed appeared in 1789, but back in the 1300s the word screed meant a fragment or strip of cloth. How a fragment grew to refer to something long & monotonous is a question for minds better than mine. Any thoughts about chattering, blabbing, prattling, spiels or screeds? Please leave those thoughts in the comments section. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Wordnik, Etymonline, Merriam Webster, Cards by Cathrina & the OED.
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 Here are just a few etymologies of words we use when it comes to politics.
When someone (in particular a politician) can’t seem to make up his/her mind on an important topic, s/he is said to be a waffler. Though it’s reasonable to assume this has something to do with a waffle having two sides, the can’t—make-up-one’s-mind sort of waffle & the tasty-with-butter-&-syrup waffle have completely different origins. The latter showed up in English in 1744 from German through Dutch, with its grandmother Proto-Germanic word wabila meaning web or honeycomb. It’s related to the word weave. Political waffling, though, is probably imitative of a dog’s bark & showed up in English in the 1600s, meaning to yelp or bark like a puppy. In time, the term grew to mean to speak foolishly, & in 1803 landed on today’s meaning, to vacillate or equivocate. Books, plays, movies, speeches, & politicians can all be said to have laid an egg. Etymologists are presently duking it out over two posited sources for this one. Theory one: in cricket or other games, when a team scores nothing, the zero resembles an egg, thus, the team that falls flat has laid an egg. Theory two: when a hen lays an egg, she makes a big fuss, clucking with pride at her accomplishment, but none of her compadres are impressed. I’ll be sure to keep an eye on the battle & will report immediately with breaking news on this front. An incorrect, though clever, folk etymology suggests that the word news is an acronym standing for all the information from the north, east, west, & south. Actually, the word news came through French from the Latin word nova, new, arriving in English in the 1300s & meaning new things. A person who is compelled to share his/her opinions is a kibitzer. This word showed up in English in 1927 & came from German through Yiddish. The Yiddish word, kibitsen, meant to offer gratuitous advice as an outsider, while the German word meant to look on at cards. The German meaning was inspired by folktales involving a small shorebird, the kiebitz, whose fictional habit involved interfering in card games by sitting on a card player’s shoulder & muttering unwanted instructions. The German word kiebitz appears to be an imitation of the call of the kiebitz, or lapwing. I’m hoping some of you might be willing to share some kibitzing regarding all this. If so, please do so in the comments below. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Wordnik, Etymonline, Hugh Rawson’s Devious Derivations, Jordan Almond’s Dictionary of Word Origins, & the OED.  The word slang entered the language in 1756, meaning special vocabulary of tramps or thieves. By 1801 it had generalized to mean jargon of a given profession, & these days it mostly means casual, informal, or playful speech. Etymologists seem to agree that slang’s origin is unknown, though two probable sounding (& interesting) theories have been disproved. The first is that the word slang has a relationship to the word language, in particular the French word langue. As logical as that seems, linguistic forensics don’t’ support it. Another disproved theoretical origin is the Norse term slengja kljeften. Its literal translation is to sling with the jaw & its meaning is to abuse with words. It warms my heart to know that as I type, hardworking etymologists are chipping away in the word mines trying to get to the bottom of this mystery.
A near-synonym of slang is jargon. It came to English in the 1300s meaning unintelligible talk or gibberish. It came from Old French, in which jargon meant chattering, especially of birds, which came from the Latin word garrire, which also meant chatter. In the 1650s the word lingo came to English. Lingo was probably a corruption of the Latin term lingua franca, a medium of communication between two peoples. The word patois, which carries a somewhat positive connotation in modern English, started out just the opposite. It came to English meaning a provincial dialect, & carried all the cultural baggage associated with living far from the assumed center of culture. Its most likely source is the Old French word patoier, or to paw or handle clumsily. A somewhat less judgmental term was the word vernacular, which simply meant native to a country, & showed up in the 1600s from the Latin word vernaculus, or native, local, indigenous. Ah, nothing like a little slang, eh? Please leave any comments in the comments section. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Wordnik, Etymonline,, Merriam Webster, & the OED.  In last week’s post we took a look at words meaning to raise one’s voice, so it seems only fair to look this week into the quieter end of the spectrum.
The verb hush showed up in English in the 1540s, with the noun & interjection forms appearing in the 1600s. The early 1300s brought us the word mutter, meaning to mumble. It came from an imitative Proto-Indo-European word mut-, to grumble or mutter. Murmur, an expression of discontent made by grumbling, came to English in the 1400s from the Old French word murmure, which came from the Latin word murmurare. It wasn’t until the 1600s that murmur meant softly spoken words (noun) or to speak softly (verb). In the early 1300s the word mumble (spelled momelen) meant to eat in a slow, ineffective manner. By the end of the 1300s it picked up the meaning to speak indistinctly. Though it seems logical mumble might have come from the word mum, as in mum’s the word, mumble predates mum by two centuries, & nobody really knows mumble’s parentage. The oft-ignored word susurration appeared in English in the 1400s from Latin, meaning a whispering or murmur. The word whisper is an Old English word, once spelled hwisprian, meaning to murmur or speak softly. Though many modern speakers can’t even hear the difference, those of us “of a certain age” were taught to pronounce words beginning with wh-differently than those beginning with w-, & the Old English spelling hwisprian throws a little light on why the burst of air comes before the w- in words like the word whisper. Please share any thoughts on all this in the comments section. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Wordnik, Etymonline, Merriam Webster, & the OED.  We English speakers have a number of words that mean to raise one’s voice. Yell comes from the Proto-Germanic word gel-, to yell or shout. Some of the older forms live on in a name for a bird that yells out, the nightingale. Our word bellow has been with us since English became itself, too. It seems to have come from the Proto-Indo-European root bhel-, to sound or roar. Back when Old English was in vogue, bellow only referred to the sounds of animals, but by 1600 we humans could bellow with the best of them. Shout entered English about 1300 from an unknown source, though some etymologists argue that it may have come from the originally Old English word shoot, as a shout is a voice thrown or shot out. Others argue it may have come from the Old Norse word skuta, to chide or scold. The Old English word rarian, meaning roar, bellow, lament or cry, became our modern word roar. Though nobody knows for sure, roar is most likely imitative. The word scream is of somewhat unknown origin, though variations of it are peppered through the Anglo Saxon and Germanic languages. Scream showed up in English in the 1100s & originally meant to terrify or scare. As I have a fascination with our ongoing prejudice against Anglo Saxon & Germanic words in favor of the more “civilized” words of Latin & Greek origin, I find it humorous that the English synonyms for yell originating in Latin & Greek are vociferate, & exclaim. To my ear, an exclamation or vociferation simply doesn’t have the guts & oomph found in a good old fashioned yell, shout, roar, bellow, or scream. Please share any thoughts on all this in the comments section. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Wordnik, Etymonline, Merriam Webster, & the OED.  The Latin word ligare meant to bind. Ligare gave birth to many modern words.
Ligament initially meant a bandage or tie. It came straight from Latin. Oblige came to English about 1300, meaning to bind by oath. It came from ligare through French. Delegate also came through French, starting in Latin as delagare to send as a representative, formed by adding the prefix de- (meaning from) to legare. It arrived in English in the 1500s, meaning representative. League appeared in English in the 1100s, meaning confederacy. It came from the Middle French word ligue, which came from the Italian word lega, which came from the Latin word ligare. Ligare also made its way through French to give us the word liaison which arrived in English in the 1640s. When the prefix ad- (meaning to) attached itself to ligare, the Latin word was alligare, which in Old French became aloiier, which arrived in English about 1400 as the word alloy. Rely also came through French, though from a form of ligare that included the prefix re-, not meaning to do again, as re-sometimes means, but meaning very or a lot. The Latin word religare meant to bind fast. In time Old French adopted a form which became the word relier, meaning to assemble, fasten, or attach. When rely made its way to English in the 1300s, its original meaning was to gather or assemble. It wasn’t until the 1570s that rely picked up the additional meaning depend or trust. All these from the Latin word meaning to bind. If any of them surprised you, please leave a note in the comments section. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Wordnik, Etymonline, Merriam Webster, & the OED.  What do Sanskrit, Hindi, Lithuanian, Yiddish, Dutch, Spanish, French, Latin, English & Norse have in common? Hard-working etymologists working in the basements of ivory towers have determined these & dozens more all came from one parent language. And since it never got written down & no modern person speaks that parent language, those diligent etymologists have recreated the parent language based on the qualities of the progeny and have called that parent Proto-Indo-European.
One of the many proposed bits of Proto-Indo-European is the word pau, meaning few or little, & for an imagined word in an imagined language, our friend pau was a fertile parent. This week’s post takes a look at some of pau’s offspring, which interestingly tend to refer to horses or poverty. The word few, meaning not many, a small number, or a little, arrived in Old English early enough that it appears to have come straight from Proto-Indo-European. It arrived so early we don’t even know its birth year. Foal, meaning foal or colt. came to Old English equally early through Proto-Germanic from Proto-Indo-European. Poor showed up in the 1200s, meaning lacking money or resources, indigent, small or scanty. Its path took it from Proto-Indo-European through Latin & French to English. In the 1400s filly showed up, meaning young mare, female colt or foal. It arrived in English from Proto-Indo-European via Old Norse. In the late 1400s the word paucity came to English, meaning smallness of number or quantity. In turn, paucity gave birth to the musical term poco, meaning a little or slightly. These words made their way from Proto-Indo-European through Latin & French before arriving in English. The word pauper arrived in English in the 1510s, meaning destitute of property or means of livelihood. It also came to English through Latin & French. Pony came to English in the 1650s through Latin, French & Scottish, and refers to a little foal. All these words from pau. I’m hoping some of you will leave brilliant theories in the comments section as to what the deal is with horses & poverty. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Wordnik, Etymonline, Merriam Webster, & the OED.  As noted three posts ago, recent DNA findings have placed some very unlikely animals under the ungulate (hoofed mammals) umbrella: whales, dolphins & porpoises. Most closely related to the hippopotamus, whales, dolphins & porpoises (also known as cetaceans) no longer have an order of their own. Scientists haven’t quite settled over whether cetaceans are a suborder or infra-order of ungulates.
The word cetacean entered English in 1830 from Modern Latin, meaning any large sea creature. The Latin term was derived from the Greek word ketos, whale or sea monster. No one knows the source of ketos. The Old English word hwæl, which meant both whale & walrus, gave us the word whale. Our modern idiom whale of a/n _______, meaning big or excellent showed up in 1900. One of many whales is the killer whale. The word killer showed up in the 1400s from the English word kill (which first appeared in the 1200s), & meant one who strikes, beats or knocks. Though we’re not 100% sure, kill may have come from the Old English word cwellan, to kill. Cwellan is also the most likely suspect for the source of qualm & quell. Our idiom to kill time kicked in about 1728. The figurative meaning of killer, impressive person or thing appeared in 1900, and the term killer instinct showed up in the world of boxing in 1931. And getting back to cetaceans, the killer whale was first called that in 1725. In the early 1300s the word porpas appeared in English, from the Old French word porpais, which translates ingloriously to pork fish. Interestingly, the German word for porpoise translates literally to sea hog. It’s likely the somewhat pig-like snout of the porpoise may be responsible for both words, though a modern etymologist might wonder whether those long-ago French & German porpoise-namers may have sensed a deeper connection to the porpoise’s distant ungulate cousin, the pig. Our word dolphin came from French in the mid-1300s. We can trace dolphin back through Old French, Medieval Latin, Latin & Greek to the word delphinos, meaning dolphin. This Greek root is closely related to delphys, meaning womb. Etymologists suggest Ancient Greeks found it remarkable that instead of coming from eggs, the progeny of this “fish” arrive through live birth. Dear readers. If you’ve got anything to say about these water-bound “hoofed mammals,” please do so in the comments section. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Wordnik, Science Direct, Ultimate Ungulate,Etymonline, & the OED.  The word up was spelled in a number of ways in Old English, including up & uppe. It meant up or upward & came from the Proto-Indo-European word upo, which also gave us the Greek word hypo (as in hypo-allergenic, hypochondriac & hypodermic).
In last week’s post I mentioned that up performs as an adverb, noun, verb & adjective. I missed something. Up also functions as a preposition. Adverb – Marcel walks up the hill. Adjective - Ophelia seems up today. Verb - The grocer upped the price of blueberries. Noun - The market has its ups & downs. Preposition - Madeleine’s speedy departure left Stanley up in the air. And here are a few more uppish idioms: 1847 – The term getup (or get-up) refers to one’s costume. This appears to have come from the 1841 idiom getup meaninginitiative or energy. 1853 – upholster is referred to by linguists as a “back formation” because it appears to be a base word, but actually came from the longer word (from 1610) upholsterer, which refers to a person who fixes furniture. Upholsterer comes from the word upholdester, which came from the word upholden back in the 1300s, and meant repair, uphold, keep from falling or sinking. 1891 – To send someone up the river, meaning to send someone to jail, originated in New York City, as the prison Sing Sing was up the Hudson River from the city. 1922 - coverup (or cover-up) means the act of concealing. It appeared in print as two words (cover up) as early as 1872. 1947 – upbeat, meaning with a positive mood, comes from the 1869 musical term upbeat, which labels the beat during a bar when the conductor’s baton is pointed upward. 1951 - To drive someone up the wall, meaning to annoy or irritate, came from the observed behavior of some animals (& patients) in cages. Please use the comments section to tell me what’s up. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Wordnik, Etymonline, & the OED.  This past week I had an unfortunate experience with a squirrel, which got me to thinking about the word squirrel, which led to this post.
In the early 1300s English speakers started using the word squirrel instead of the Old English word acweorna. Squirrel came from the Anglo-French word esquirel, which we can trace back through Old French, Vulgar Latin, & Latin to the Greek word skiouros, a word used to refer to – what a surprise – squirrels, though it translates literally to shadow-tailed. Interestingly, it wasn’t until 1939 that the word squirrel added to its quiver a verb form, allowing us now to squirrel things away. The word chipmunk came to English in 1832 from the Ojibwa word ajidamoo, which means one who descends trees headlong. The lack of phonetic similarity between chipmunk & ajidamoo is probably due to the English speakers translating the “foreign” sounds of the people they were busy displacing to sounds they were accustomed to hearing. Though some marmots live in grasslands, European marmots tend to prefer higher altitudes. The word marmot came to English in the 1600s. We can trace it back through French & Swiss to the Latin murim montis, or mountain mouse. The vole lives primarily in fields. The word vole came to English in 1828,most likely from the Old Norse word, vollr, which means field. We refer to a type of burrowing squirrel as a gopher, a word that arrived in American English in 1812. The Americans most likely borrowed the word from the Louisiana French speakers’ word gaufre, which meant honeycomb or waffle, a reference to the condition of the garden or field after the gopher has claimed it as its own. Please share any of your rodential thoughts in the comments section. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Wordnik, Etymonline, & the OED |
I write for teens, narrate audio books, bake bread, play music, and ponder the wonder of words in a foggy little town on California's central coast.
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