 Since last week we took a look at dog idioms, this week we’ll consider the etymologies of some selected dog breeds.
It would be reasonable to assume the word poodle comes from French, but it actually came to English in 1808 from the German word pudelhund, which meant water dog. At the time, poodles swam into bodies of water to retrieve ducks and such. And yes, poodle is directly related to the word puddle. And schnauzer, which sounds as though it came from German, actually did. In 1923 schnauzer came to English to label a particular sort of terrier. Schnauzer meant growler, & came from the word schnauze, which meant snout. And yes, snout, snoot, & schnoz all came from this same source. Chow-chow comes, as one would expect, from Chinese. Though it’s uncertain what the root is, some etymologists argue it’s a reduplication of the Chinese word cha, which means mixed. As every breed is actually a mixture of earlier breeds, this as-yet unproven explanation makes good sense. Back in 1858 an undetermined native language of North America gave us chihuahua, which meant dry place. One of the many dry places in North America earned this moniker, as did the small dogs plentiful in the region. Akita came from a Japanese word meaning field of ripe rice. This description applied to a region of northern Japan. Eventually, the energetic dog of the area also took on the name. Corgi entered English in 1926 from two Welsh word parts: cor- meaning dwarf, & -ci, meaning dog. The word mastiff came to English in the 1300s through French from a Latin word meaning gentle & tame. Though many folks might look at a modern mastiff & not immediately think gentle & tame, guard dogs living in people’s homes have to be well-mannered, & the mastiff was bred to be a guard dog. Many etymologists think the word mastiff might have been additionally influenced by the Old French word mestif, which meant mongrel. Any thoughts on all these dog breeds, or all the dogged work etymologists have done to figure all this out? Please use the comments section. My thanks go out to this week’s sources Etymonline, The Free Dictionary, Collins Dictionary, Merriam Webster, Wordnik, & the OED.
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 Dogs make it into English idioms all the time, as dogs make their way into our hearts. As you consider this photo of The Noodle, looking contrite, consider the following: dog & pony show shaggy dog story as sick as a dog like a dog with a bone call off the dogs dirty dog dog eats dog dog-tired dog-eared every dog has its day raining cats & dogs go to see a man about a dog hot diggety-dog! a dog’s life let sleeping dogs lie meaner than a junkyard dog put on the dog tail wagging the dog hair of the dog that bit you life in the old dog yet you can’t teach an old dog new tricks in the dog house I had a bit of a milquetoast upbringing & had always heard one of the above terms, yet really hadn’t constructed much meaning for it. Then, in my twenties I had a character of a roommate named Mick. He kept me laughing with his Irish accent, colorful terms & his drinking ways. Nearly every Saturday morning I’d get up to see Mick sitting on our lumpy, brown floral sofa, his eyes at halfmast & a beer in his hand. “Hair o’ the dog what bit ya,” he’d say, wincing between swigs. Followers, please add something in the comments section: 1. What dog idioms did I leave out? 2. Tell your tale about one of the idioms above. My thanks go out to this week’s sources The OED, Etymonline, The Free Dictionary, & Cesar’s Way  A particular physical characteristic of mine inspired this post.
The word bald has been with us since the 1300s, meaning wanting hair in some place where it naturally grows. Though we’re not really sure where the word bald came from, there are some likely sources. The Proto-Indo-European word *bhel- meant to shine, flash, or gleam, the Celtic word bal meant white patch or blaze, & the Sanskrit word bhalam meant brightness or forehead. Appearing in the 1580s, meaning of black & white coloring, piebald appears to have come from combining pie, a shortening of magpie, (a black & white bird) with the Celtic sense of bald, meaning white. Skewbald has been with us since the 1650s, meaning of brown and white coloring. Nobody’s sure where the skew in skewbald came from, but it’s pretty clear the bald bit came from that Celtic meaning of bald. Who would think it’s germane, but in the 1840s the word chauvinism was born, meaning patriotism degenerated into a vice. It came from the character Nicolas Chauvin (of Théodore & Hipployte Cogniard’s play, La Cocarde Tricolore). This character hung onto his association with Napoleon & his politics long after Napoleon was gone. By the 1800s chauvinism broadened to also mean racism, & by the 1960s chauvinism began to mean sexism. Chauvin is the French form of Calvin, which comes from the Latin word calvus, meaning bald. Though paintings of John Calvin (originator of Calvinism) always show him wearing a natty cap, one must wonder why John Calvin wore that natty cap. Any thoughts out there on baldness? If so, please leave a comment. Thanks to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com, the OED, Trinities.org, Merriam-Webster, Collins English Dictionary, & Wordnik.com.  Groucho Marx, Dorothy Parker, & Winston Churchill were masters of the paraprosdokian, a one-liner that ends in a manner that causes the reader to reconsider the beginning.
A classic example is Where there’s a will, I want to be in it. The word paraprosdokian comes from Greek. It’s a combination of para-, meaning against, & prosdokian, meaning expectation. Here are a few anonymous ones: Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine. War doesn’t determine who is right—only who is left. Always borrow money from a pessimist; he won’t expect it back. Light travels faster than sound - this is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it’s still on the list. And here are a few more from luminaries: Winston Churchill — “If you are going through Hell, keep going.” And another from Winston Churchill -- “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.” Zsa Zsa Gabor --“He taught me housekeeping; when I divorce, I keep the house.” Groucho Marx--”I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” Albert Einstein--“The difference between stupidity & genius is that genius has its limits.” Dorothy Parker — “If all the girls who went to Yale were laid end-to-end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.” Please leave a note in the comments with any other paraprosdokians you know, or with comments on the ones above. Thanks to this week’s sources, English Forums, LiteraryDevices.net, Urban Dictionary, Wordnik, & Coffee with the Hermit.  Many of us who love the English language cringe upon hearing the word orientate. Truth is, orientate is recognized by almost all respectable dictionaries. So what makes orientate so cringeworhty?
Orientate is what etymologists call a back-formation. It was born when English speakers “verbified” the noun orientation. What curls the toes of language sticklers is that we already had the perfectly good verb orient — why create a second, longer word with the same exact meaning? Not all words created through back-formation make certain people wince. A bunch of words came to us by lopping off bits instead of adding bits. Secrete arrived in 1707 from secretion (1640). Surveil came to us in 1904 from surveillance (1802). Greed showed up in 1600 from greedy, which has been part of English since before anyone called it English. Implode came to us in 1870 from implosion (1829). Zip appeared in 1932 from zipper (1925). Paginate showed up in 1858 from pagination (1841). Incarcerate arrived in 1550 from incarceration (1530s). Avid came to us in 1769 from avidity (1400s) Mutate appeared in 1818 from mutation (1300s). Humiliate arrive in the 1530s from humiliation (1300s). And even the verb edit (1891) is most likely a back-formation of editor (1640). Please leave any thoughts on all this in the comments section. Thanks to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com, the OED, Merriam-Webster, Collins English Dictionary, Grammar Girl, & Wordnik.com.  Sometimes what appears to be an unexplainable preference actually has an explanation.
Each year I have the incredible good fortune to attend a writing retreat with children’s writing guru & editing luminary, Patricia Lee Gauch. Now a retired editorial director of Philomel (Penguin), Patti wrote some remarkable children’s books & is a passionate editor & teacher. She was the first editor to hire illustrator extraordinaire, Floyd Cooper. And here's a handful of the many authors whose award-winning books she edited: Jane Yolen, TA Barron, Judith St. George, Lloyd Alexander, Eric Carle, Patricia Polacco, Kathryn Erskine, Andrew Clements, Virginia Hamilton, & Brian Jacques. While discussing making a scene come alive, Patti notes that many editors tend to ask authors for detail, but the word detail has never resonated for her. Instead, she sometimes asks for more specifics. Her default term though -- the word that really latches onto what she’s looking for in a scene that needs to come alive -- is texture. Interesting. The modern word detail, meaning a small, subordinate piece, came to English about 1600 from a French noun that originally meant cut into pieces. Her second choice, the noun specifics, arrived in English about that same time from Latin through French. The original Latin word meant kind or sort, & is also the parent word for the word species. Patti's preferred word, texture, made its way into English two centuries earlier from Latin through Middle French. It’s related to the word textile & comes from a verb that meant to weave or fabricate. In their efforts to help authors craft books, editors are doing all they can to help those authors weave the disparate strands of character, story, setting & tension into something whole, something complete. Nobody wants a story to be cut into pieces. Maybe it's no surprise that a gifted, longstanding editor winces at the use of the word detail, finds the word specifics acceptable, but not quite right, & relishes the word texture. Does Patti’s word choice when it comes to editorial advice reflect a sixth sense regarding the history of these words? Can a word’s origins follow it from language to language & culture to culture, through centuries of change? Readers, writers, what are your thoughts on this? Please chime in by clicking on comments below. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Etymonline, Wordnik, Collins Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, & the OED. Photo by Megan Frances Abrahams.  We English-speakers (& users of the languages that preceded English) have done a whole lot of splitting & cutting. All the following words (& a bunch I couldn’t fit into this post) come from one Proto-Indo-European source. Etymologists write this word *skei-. It meant to cut or split.
It gave us the word shingle, a piece of wood split from a larger piece. The idea that a shingled roof involves overlapping pieces also gave us the meaning overlapping stones on the shore. It also gave us the idiom to hang out one’s shingle, & a hairstyle involving overlapping layers. Appearing in Old English (some time between 400 & 1000 AD), the word shin appears to have come from the knowledge that the fibula in the lower leg appears to have split off from the larger tibia. Shed also showed up in Old English, meaning to divide, separate, part company or discriminate. In modern usage, we still see this meaning in the phrase to shed one’s skin & in the term watershed, in which drops of rain falling on one side of a mountain are divided from the drops of rain fallowing on the opposite side. Shiver, originally a small piece, fragment or splinter, came from *skei-, as did shiver, to break into small pieces (as in shiver me timbers), however the shivering we might do when cold or frightened comes from a different source altogether. Coming to English in 1883 we have the word ski, which came from *skei- through Old Norse from a word meaning a long stick of wood — one split from a larger piece. The root *skei- also made its way through Greek & Latin to arrive in English as the combining form schizo-, which gave us - among other words - schizophrenic, reflecting a condition originally understood to involve a split personality. Though etymologists still argue over the origin of the word ship, one school of thought maintains ship came from *skei- because the building of the earliest vessels involved the cutting or hollowing of a tree. And because knowledge involves distinguishing (or splitting) one thing from another, we have the words science, prescience, omniscience, conscience, & many others. All from cutting & splitting. Who knew? If you found all this intriguing or surprising, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section. Thanks to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com, the OED, Merriam-Webster, Collins English Dictionary, & Wordnik.com.  It shouldn’t be surprising that most words for laughter are imitative of the sound of laughter. Still, I find them intriguing, & occasionally worthy of… a laugh. Cackle came to English in the 1200s, meaning a loud laugh. It’s considered imitative. Its source is the Latin word cacchination, which is also considered imitative, though to be honest, I’ve never heard a laugh that sounded much like cacchination. Giggle appeared in the 1500s with no source. A giggle is a short, spasmodic laugh. Giggle is assumed to be imitative. About a century later, titter appeared, also imitative, defined as a suppressed or nervous giggle. Another century later, in the 1720s, the Scottish term guffaw caught on among English speakers. A guffaw is defined as a loud or noisy laugh, & not surprisingly, is imitative. One term for a laugh that isn’t directly imitative is chortle. Formed through a marriage of chuckle & snort, chortle was coined by Lewis Carrol in 1872 in his brilliant poem, Jabberwocky. And yes, chuckle & snort are both imitative. A snicker is a smothered laugh & came to English in the 1690s. Its sister word snigger appeared in 1706, meaning the same thing. Both are imitative. The word laugh comes to English through Proto-Germanic from Proto-Indo-European. English speakers started using laugh in the late 1300s. And like its funny friends, laugh is imitative. I’m hoping some of the forms of this word may give you a laugh. Old Norse - hlæja Anglian - hlæhhan Old Saxon - hlahhian Old Frisian - hlakkia Dutch & German - lachen Sanskrit - kakhati Lithuanian - klageti Greek - kakhazein Old Church Slavonic - chochotati Boy, those Old Church Slavonic folks must have been a laugh a minute, eh? And on a not-so-laughable note, if you've found yourselves struggling with Latinx/Latine and its variations, click this link, scroll down to "Get Educated" and see what the good folks at Anti Racism Daily have to say about it. Comments? You know where to leave them. Thanks to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com, the OED, Merriam-Webster, Collins English Dictionary, & Wordnik.com.  When it comes to English idioms, beans rule. Here are just a few idioms that employ bean or beans:
In the 1800s the idiom hill of beans was born, meaning worthless, mostly due to the relative lack of value of beans. Since the 1800s, someone who is full of energy can be said to be full of beans. In 1830, it could be said of a clever person that s/he knows how many beans make five. Though nobody is certain, this idiom may have provided the contrast for the phrase suggesting someone is anything but clever, s/he doesn’t know beans. Since 1837, a thin person might be referred to as a beanpole. Spill the beans first showed up in 1910, when it meant spoil the situation. By 1919 spill the beans meant reveal a secret. Since 1940 we’ve been referring to a small close-fitting hat as a beanie, a term that grew out of the 1910 slang word for head, bean. It appears the idiom cool beans, meaning excellent! (as of the 80s & 90s) may have originated in the 1970s, when a handful of colorful uppers &/or downers looked like a handful of jelly-beans. And, since 1971, anyone overly focused on trivial details can be referred to as a bean-counter. Like hill of beans, this idiom reflects the relative lack of value of beans. Do any of you out there know beans? If so, please leave a comment. Thanks to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com, the OED, Merriam-Webster, Word Detective, & Wordnik.com.  We English speakers have heaps of ways to raise our voices. Here are a few:
Shout has been a part of the language since the 1200s & has meant to call or cry out loudly that whole time. Its source is unclear, but it may be the root of shoot (when shouting, one throws one voice, a bit like one might “throw” an arrow or bullet). Yell has been a part of English since the beginning of English. It comes through Proto-Germanic from the Proto-Indo-European word *ghel-, which meant to shout out, sing or yell. We can see the sing meaning of *ghel- in the modern word nightingale, which causes me to appreciate that nightingales held onto this sing meaning of the word; nobody needs birds who yell. The Old Norse word skrækja made its way into English in the 1200s as scrycke, which eventually became both the word screech, & the word shriek, meaning exactly that. Linguists are pretty sure it’s an imitative word. Bellow appeared in English in the 1300s, meaning to roar. It came through Old English from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning the same thing. A comparable late-comer to English is the word holler, meaning to shout. Holler didn’t appear until the 1690s, from an earlier form, hollar, which referred to the act of calling the hounds in from hunting. A later shade of meaning denoted a style of singing popular at the time in the American South. Holler shares its roots with the word hello. The modern digital equivalent of YELLING may have first been established in John Irving’s 1989 book, A Prayer for Owen Meany. Ideas? Comments? Reactions? Please leave them in the comments section. YELL if you must. Thanks to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com, the OED, Merriam-Webster, Collins English Dictionary, & Wordnik.com. |
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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