English is rife with idioms involving walking. Most have pretty shakily documented origins, but here are a few verifiable ones: In the 1570s the idiom walking stick was born. In 1769 the first written usage of walk the plank occurred. In 1846 the idiom walking sickness was coined. Oddly, the term walking pneumonia has unclear beginnings, though the particular strain (mycoplasmal pneumonia) was named “atypical pneumonia” in 1938. In 1848 the idiom worship the ground s/he walks on entered the language. A walk in the park was born in 1937, and sometime thereafter, the term no walk in the park was conceived. And imagine my surprise. The term walking bass didn't start with stride piano and musicians like the inimitable Fats Waller. The walking bass was created over two centuries earlier by Johann Sebastian Bach & his baroque pals. My musical ignorance is showing. In a similar vein, though most people of my generation might assume the idiom a walk on the wild side was conceived in 1972 by songwriter Lou Reed, the earliest usage of the phrase was actually Nelson Algren’s 1956 novel, A Walk on the Wild Side. The idiom walk the green mile comes from the death row of an infamous Louisiana prison, in which the condemned took their final walk down a hallway of green linoleum. World War I gave us many idioms, among them (sadly) the walking wounded. The walk a mile in someone’s shoes idiom comes from the Cherokee. Interesting that the original walked-in shoes were moccasins. What do you bet nobody paid for the idiom? Please add a comment, or a walking idiom I haven’t included. My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Wordnik, The Word Detective, & Etymonline,
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There are some great words out there for those moments when one feels as though death is dragging its bony finger up one’s spine. Here are a few.
Comments like, “that man gives me the willies,” were favorites of my great grandmother, Sally Rather King. This usage of willies (unlike other forms which beg for another post) came about in 1896 (a decade or two after my great grandmother was born) & is believed to have come from an earlier idiom, to give one the woolies, which was most likely a reference to the feeling of itchy wool on the skin. The Middle English word chittern, to chitter or chatter, gave birth to the modern term the jitters, which is defined as extreme nervousness. This particular form of the word jitter didn’t enter English until 1925. Whimwham (or wimwam) most likely came from the Old Norse term hvima, to let the eyes wander, or the related Norwegian word kvima, to flutter. In modern usage, whimwham means both a fanciful object & the jitters. The second meaning generally occurs within the phrase a case of the whimwhams. Those of us who regularly experience the jitters, whimwhams, or willies might be labeled lily-livered, a term born in 1625 in the play Macbeth, by the ultimate coiner of words, William Shakespeare. Then, of course, there are the heebie-jeebies. Many modern speakers of English assume that beneath the heebie-jeebies lurks anti-Semitism. This assumption is unfounded. The term heebie-jeebies was coined in 1923 by Bill De Beck, cartoonist of the comic strip “Barney Google,” and when it comes to that particular prejudice, De Beck’s work seems squeaky clean. So folks, do all these drag-a-finger-up-the-spine words give you the heebie-jeebies, or would you rather leave a comment noting experiences you’ve had which inspire a raging case of the whimwhams? My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Wordnik, The Word Detective, & Etymonline, Boondocks came to English in 1910 from the Tagalog word bundok, meaning mountain. American soldiers (who were occupying the Philippines at the time), brought it home to America, though in the process, the meaning morphed from mountain to any remote & wild place. By 1964, we had shortened boondocks to boonies.
Hinterland (or hinterlands) showed up in English in 1890 from German, -land meaning, well, land, & hinter- meaning behind (as in hind, behind, & hindmost). Interestingly, as far back as the 1300s, hinder had made its way into Middle English. One of the hinder-related words we’ve lost over time is the word hinderling, meaning a person who has fallen from moral or social respectability, Though stick (in the form of stician) has been a part of the language since folks spoke Old English, the boondocks meaning of the sticks didn’t show up until 1905. Those Old English speakers also used the word wildnis, which has changed over the centuries to wilderness. It was initially an adjective meaning wildness & savageness, though along the way it took on a nounly mantle. Another modern synonym is the idiom the middle of nowhere. I’ve been unsuccessful at finding when this idiom entered the language, but along the way I learned that nowhere had some siblings who didn’t last as long. Nowhat made a stab at existing in the 1520s & nowhen fought for its life unsuccessfully in 1764. As a kid I was flummoxed at the term desert island because it seemed to me it always meant something closer to deserted island. Mystery solved: the word desert entered English from French in the early 1200s, meaning wasteland or wilderness. It wasn’t until a century later that desert started meaning treeless, waterless region, which, arguably, could also be a wasteland, or the sticks, or the boondocks, or… What other terms do you know that refer to distant, remote places? Or might you have something to say about all this? I hope you’ll leave a comment. My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Merriam Webster, Wordnik & Etymonline, Most of us do it every day, but do we think about the word? Here's a gander at the verb chew.
Not surprisingly, our modern word chew started out meaning to bite, gnaw or chew when it made its way from one of the Germanic languages into Old English, where it was spelled ceowan. Both chow (1500s) & chaw (1520) are variants of the word chew. It’s also very likely that jaw (1300s), jowl (1570) and cheek (825) were born of that Old English word ceowan. In other chew-related news, the Proto-Indo-European word mendh- which became the Latin word mandele, meaning to chew, gave birth to mandible, munch, mastic, masticate, mustache, paper maché & mange (a tiny bit of mildly disturbing imagination will help connect those dots). Ruminate entered English in the 1530s, from Latin, meaning to chew the cud or turn over in the mind. Champ, which came to English in 1905, meaning to chew noisily, is probably onomatopoeic in origin. English is rife with chew-inspired idioms, including: Chew someone out Chew the fat Chew something over Chew something up Bite off more than one can chew Chew away at something Chew one’s cud Chew one’s tobacco Mad enough to chew nails (in my neighborhood, we spat nails in lieu of chewing them) I hope this post has given you something on which to chew. If so, please let me know what you’re thinking in the comment section. My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Free Dictionary, Collins Dictionary, Merriam Webster, & Etymonline, We walk on them all the time, but do we ever take the time to think of their etymologies? The word carpet made its way into English in the 1200s, meaning coarse cloth, tablecloth or bedspread. It entered English from the Old French word carpite, which referred to heavy, decorated cloth. This came from the Medieval Latin word carpite, which began with the word carpere, to card or to pluck. This most likely had to do with the fact that wool, cotton, and other weaving materials required some sort of plucking before they could be wrassled into threads or yarn, and then woven into cloth. It wasn’t until the 1400s that carpets clearly belonged on floors. Oddly, rugs didn’t start on the floor either. The word rug entered English in the 1550s, from Norwegian rugga, meaning coarse fabric or coverlet to drape over furniture. It took until the 1800s for rugs to land soundly on the floor. Some rug & carpet tidbits: Though nobody’s sure when the term roll out the red carpetbecame popular, the custom of rolling out a red carpet to celebrate royalty or popularity appears to have begun in ancient Greek myth when Clytaemnestra rolled one out for Agamemnon. 1769 to be snug as a bug in a rug 1823 to be called on the carpet 1940 theatre slang labeled a toupee a rug 1942 to cut a rug 1953 to sweep something under the carpet 1968 the word rugrat was born So, good followers, what rug- or carpet-related thoughts do you have? My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Wordnik & Etymonline, For years now I’ve been laughingly referring to myself as a minion. I'm a minion at the local Food Bank, a minion at the Central Coast Writing Conference, & a minion for the Central/Coastal California Region of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. In my California baby-boomer upbringing, I understood that a minion was a devoted helper – usually of some nefarious villain. Nefarious villains aside, I’ve always had an affinity for the word. Imagine my surprise upon discovering that minion has a myriad of deliciously disparate meanings. The OED devotes two thirds of a page to minion, which appeared first in English about the year 1500. Though most etymologists believe it came from the Old High German word minnja or minna, meaning love, others put its source in the Celtic combining form, min- or small, which was borrowed from Latin. The OED’s definitions (slightly abbreviated) for minion include: a. a beloved object, darling or favorite b. a lover, lady-love, mistress or paramour c. a dearest friend or favorite child, servant or animal d. one who owes everything to his patron’s favor & is ready to purchase its continuance by base compliances e. a form of address, meaning darling or dear one f. a hussy, jade, servile creature or slave g. a gallant, an exquisite h. an adjective meaning dainty, fine, elegant, pretty or neat The last few OED meanings are really out there. a. a small kind of ordnance b. a type of peach c. a type of lettuce d. a typesetter’s term identifying a medium-size font Some non-OED definitions compiled by the wonderful folks at Wordnik include: a. an obsequious follower or sycophant b. a pert or saucy girl or woman c. a loyal servant of a powerful being Good followers, I will keep my theories to myself in hopes that you will spout forth your own. How did this one simple word end up being its own antonym in multiple ways? And what’s up with the lettuce, anyway? My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Collins Dictionary, Wordnik, Etymonline, Who knew the unassuming word napkin was part of such a large, disparate family?
Napkin entered English in the 1400s from the Old French word nape, cloth cover, towel, or tablecloth, combined with the Middle English suffix –kin, meaning little. The French got the root from the Latin word mappa, short for the Medieval Latin term mappa mundi, map of the world. The somewhat unlikely connection apparently derives from the fact that at that time maps were often drawn on tablecloths (I find no connection to the word divorce, though I imagine this map-on-a-tablecloth practice led to some robust interspousal arguments). So, napkin is related to map. In the late 1400s, mappa’s brother-word mappe made its way into English, meaning bundle of yarn tied to a stick for cleaning tar from a ship’s deck. Over the years this word morphed into mop. Another unlikely sibling of napkin is moppet, which came to English about the same time in the form of moppe, meaning little child, or baby doll, which, in time picked up the diminutive suffix, -et. When it first entered English it also meant simpleton or fool. This other meaning dropped out within a century or two. Etymologists are pretty sure the little child or baby doll meaning came through the use of recycling napkins & tablecloths into rag dolls (no doubt after some unthinking spouse had drawn maps all over them). Another napkin relative comes from the Latin word mappa, through the Old French word, naperon, or small table cloth. It entered English in the 1300s as Napron, though today we know it as apron. Over the course of three centuries, napron lost its initial n due to confusion around the use of the English article an: “a napron” sounds about the same as “an apron.” Voila! The mystery of the disappearing n is solved. Another relative of napkin is probably due to an early 1700s London dry-goods dealer by the name of Doiley. Apparently s/he produced a wool product known as a doily-napkin. Over time, the doily-napkin shed its surname and became simply, the doily. Good followers, I challenge you to come up with a ridiculous sentence using as many napkin-related words as possible. Leave your sentence in the comments section & we’ll all get a good laugh. My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Wordnik, Merriam-Webster, Etymonline, We use them every day, but do we appreciate their etymologies? Hopefully this entry will help. The word spoon originated in Proto-Germanic as spaenuz, which initially referred to a wooden chip or shaving. It entered Old English as spon. By the 1300s, spon began to mean wooden spoon, though its German cousin (also spelled spon), meant cooking spatula. Fork came to the language before the 1300s in the form of forca, & meant a forked instrument used by torturers. This word came from the Latin word, furca, which meant both pitchfork, & fork used in cooking. Since English folk didn’t start eating with forks until the 1400s, the English apparently found unsavory things to do with forks. Knife has a somewhat two-pronged entry into English (har har). Knife may have entered Old English as cnif from the Old Norse word, cnifr, which came from the Old German word knibaz. These words all referred to some sort of blade. The Dutch word knijp, German, kneip, or French canif, all referring to a small blade like a penknife, may have also spawned the English word, knife. Hardworking linguists are still puzzling over which came first, the knife or the, well, the knife. Here are some utensil-inspired idioms: 1610 spoonfeed 1711 jack-knife 1799 spoon (meaning simpleton) 1801 to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth 1831 fork up / fork out / fork over I’ve intentionally left out several utensil-inspired idioms in hopes that you might suggest some in the comments section. After all, I wouldn’t want to spoonfeed you. My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Wordnik,, Etymonline, Awesome has not always been cool waves, stunning sunsets & killer concerts. Its root, awe, started out on the dark side.
Awe came from the Proto-Indo-European word agh-es, which grew into the Gothic word agis, fear or anguish, & its German cousin agiso, fright or terror. Awe entered Old English as ege, simply meaning fear. By the 1300s it had become aghe. Three centuries later, the gents who pulled together the King James Bible used awe to mean fear mixed with veneration, & it is those gents we can thank for awesome’s positive makeover. Kevin Lawver, founder of Day of Awesmoness, tells us “People are awesome every day, but they frequently don't realize it, and their feats of awesomeness are rarely recognized.” Join in on the fun. Go out into the world & be awesome. But before you engage in your own brand of awesomnosity, please visit the comment section, & indulge me by explaining one positive action you’ll take this week to increase the general level of awesomeness in the world. My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Wordnik,, Etymonline, & Day of Awesomeness The Sanskrit word smarati, or remember, is the grandmother of many words. Here are a few.
The word memory came to English in the 1300s, from the French word memoire, which came from the Latin word memoria, all meaning pretty much the same thing. And memoria came about after the Sanskrit word, smarati made its convoluted way across a continent, through Proto-Indo-European, losing its last two syllables, shifting a vowel from a to e, to become smer, then losing its initial consonant to become mer. It’s pretty easy to see the resemblance between memory, memoir & remember, but smarati also managed to be the impetus for the word mourn, which - through early Germanic languages - meant to remember sorrowfully. Though not all etymologists agree, it’s very likely smarati is the unlikely root for tirade. It seems tirade, which appeared in English in the early 1800s, from French, initially meant a volley of words, which comes from the Old French, martirer, to endure martyrdom. Isn’t it delicious that putting up with a verbal tirade is etymologically equated with being burned at the stake? Of course, the word martyr also originated with the Sanskrit smarati, as did the even more unlikely word, retire. It seems reasonable that retire would have something to do with being tired, however, there appears to be no etymological support for that. Instead, retire entered English in the 1530s as a military term, to withdraw to some place for the sake of seclusion, which came from the Old French tirer, which has its roots in that wonderful grandmother of a Sanskrit word, smarati, who, let’s hope – after all that good work – has finally withdrawn somewhere for the sake of seclusion. Followers – have any of you felt martyred to someone’s tirade? Do any of you take heart that the root of mourn is more fundamentally about remembering than it is about sadness? Any other thoughts about smarati & its offspring? My thanks go out to this week’s sources Merriam Webster, the OED & Etymonline |
I write for teens & tweens, bake bread, play music, and ponder the wonder of words in a foggy little town on California's central coast.
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November 2023
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