 Regularly here at Wordmonger I mention the historical prejudice in favor of English words of Latin or Greek origin & against English words of Germanic origin. The former tend to be formal, “acceptable” words, while the latter tend to be seen as more crude, crass, or unacceptable (the whole idea of an unacceptable word deserves a post of its own). Here are a few examples. The word leer, to look with wolfish, malicious or lustful intent, came from Middle English & has almost no Latin- or Greek-inspired synonyms. Its synonyms include stare, gape, peek, peep, gaze, glance, glare, eye, & ogle, every one of them of Germanic or Scandinavian origin. The closest English synonym I can find from Latin or Greek is observe, & it has no negative connotation at all. How did we manage to lose our Latin & Greek words meaning leer? The perfectly serviceable word belch came from Old English through Middle English — to bring up wind from the stomach. Its syonynym burp came from American English in the 1930s & is beieved to be imitative of the act of burping. How do we say burp or belch with a word from Latin roots? Eructate. “Mother, please excuse my eructation.” Really? When we aren’t feeling well, we can use Germanic words to say we’re sick, ill, punk, poorly, ailing, queasy, or under the weather. Or we can sound “high class” & say we’re nauseus or nauseated (which come from Greek), or piqued (which comes from French). This same prejudice is particualrly rife when it comes to body parts. Though fanny & bootie come from American English & bum appears to be onomatopoiec, most the “distasteful” synonyms for fanny come from Germanic sources. These include rump, bottom, butt, keister, caboose, arse, moon, seat, & tail. Duff & heinie are of unknown origin, but I’d bet on Germanic, & tush comes from Yiddish. All this may be why your Great Aunt Minerva insisted on using the word rear, which is of Latin origin, though Great Aunt Minerva may have also dusted off gluteus maximus when necessary. Prejudice is sadly alive & well in the English language. Thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Etymonline, the OED, & Fotosearch.
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 Whether we really want an answer or not, English speakers all over the world greet one another with the question, “How are you?”
So here’s a look at some typical (and a couple atypical) responses. fine — appeared in English in the 1200s from Old French, meaning unblemished, free of impurities, of high quality. Because being of high quality is a good thing, it morphed to mean healthy, all right, &/or superior. fair to middling — came to English through the cotton trade & possibly the wool trade in the 1800s, meaning average, not excellent quality or poor quality. okay came to English in 1839 meaning correct or all right. It’s based on the jocular & purposeful misspelling, oll korrect. okeedokee (okey-dokey) is a reduplication of okay that appeared in 1932. Recently, writers of The Simpsons added letters to okey-dokey with okely-dokely. grand is a response I ilke to use when asked how I’m doing. It comes from the 1300s and originally mean large, but has morphed in time to also mean abundant, full-blown, strong, & splendid. When I’m not feeling all that grand, I’ll respond with vertical, which showed up in the 1550s from Latin through French, meaning perpendicular to the horizon, or in this case it could be translated to, “Well, I’m still standing.” hunky dory appeared in 1864 in political rallies. Nobody’s sure, but it may have come in part from the 1861 term hunkey, meaning satisfactory, Here’s hoping that for you, all is hunky dory, or possibly even grand. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Absolute Study, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, the OED, & FreePik.  This week, here are some thoughts on equality:
Who ever walked behind anyone to freedom? If we can’t go hand in hand, I don’t want to go. -Hazel Scott What I’m working for is the day a mediocre woman can get as far as a mediocre man. -Caroline Bird Fair play is less characteristic of groups than of individuals. -Agnes Repplier I am working for the time when unqulaified Blacks, browns, & women join the unqulaified men in running our government. -Sissy Farenthold Lack of fairness to an opponent is essentially a sign of weakness. -Emma Goldman We cannot legislate equality, but we can legislate…equal opportunity for all. -Helen Gahagan Douglas We don’t so much want to see a female Einstein become an assistant professor. We want a woman shlemiel to get promoted as quickly as a male schlemiel. Bella Abzug Schlemiels of all genders, unite! Thanks to this week’s sources: A-Z Quotes, Brainy Quote, The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women, & FreePik.  I have no idea what generous human gave me a collection of slim dictionaries called The Deadly Dictionaries. Each volume looks into one of the seven deadly sins. This week, I’m appreciating Sloth — A Dictionary for the Lazy.
Here’s a smattering of words interspersed with quotations that are resonating for me this week: somniferous — having the ability to cause sleepiness -- showed up in the 1600s from a Latin word meaning to put to sleep. quiescent — in an inactive state — resting or dormant -- from the Latin word for silent. poky — extremely slow or plodding -- appeared in the early 1800s from to poke along or to poke around. “Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all—the apathy of human beings.” -Helen Keller otiose — lazy, superfluous or inessential -- showed up in 1795 from the Latin word for leisure. looby — a lazy person, a lout — from the 1300s, an alternate form of lubber. “He that is busy is tempted by but one devil; he that is idle, by a legion.” -Thomas Fuller futz — to waste in an aimless or lazy manner — showed up first in American English, likely from Yiddish. feckless — lacking any sense of responsibility or ambition — born in Scotland in the 1590s by shortening effectless. “The avenues in my neighborhood are Pride, Covetous, & Lust; the cross streets are Anger, Gluttony, Envy, & Sloth. I live over on Sloth, & the style on our street is to avoid the other thoroughfares.” -John Chancellor Anyone else out there feeling a tad slothful? Big thanks to this week’s sources: Sloth, A Dictionary for the Lazy, Quotestrue, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, HTDaSloth.  For a shift of gears, I’m hoping that you might appreciate this Mary Oliver poem as much as I do. I’m teaching a middle school class in writing fiction & recently used this poem as a discussion item before writing. I probably first read it twenty years ago. It still knocks my socks off. Talk about word choice, imagery, & wonder.
Some Questions You Might Ask -Mary Oliver Is the soul solid, like iron? Or is it tender and breakable, like the wings of a moth in the beak of an owl? Who has it, and who doesn't? I keep looking around me. The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus. The swan opens her white wings slowly. In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness. One question leads to another. Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg? Like the eye of a hummingbird? Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop? Why should I have it, and not the anteater who loves her children? Why should I have it, and not the camel? Come to think of it, what about maple trees? What about the blue iris? What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight? What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves? What about the grass? From Mary Oliver’s House of Light, 1990 — image from Freepik.com  Here in coastal California, the berries are ramping up, which caused me to discover that a surprising percentage of berry roots have baffled etymologists.
The roots for blueberry & blackberry aren’t all that exciting, but hold onto your berry hat. Strawberry’s origins are unclear. Etymologists suggest that straw- might refer to the long stems on which the berries grow, or the “chafflike” nature of the seeds on the surface of the berry. Hmmm. Gooseberry also has uncertain roots, but may have come from the Germanic word krauss meaning crispy or curly, bent or rounded. Hmmm again. Also in the who-knows? category is the raspberry. Apparently gooseberries, strawberries & blackberries were at one point all called raspberries. The best guess is that the rasp- came from a Latin word referring to a tart wine. Another hazy origin belongs to the cranberry. Cran- seems to have come from the word crane, however no part of the plant is crane-like, & cranes have not been particularly known to lurk in, fly over, or eat cranberries. The goji part of goji berry (which hails from China) is apparently a painfully mispronounced version of the Chinese word 枸杞, The açaí berry’s origin story belongs in the Highly Questionable Origin Story category. All we have is a folk etymology which claims that a drought caused a political leader to order all infants killed. When his daughter’s baby was killed, the daughter died of grief & from the site of her death, a tree sprung up. Its berries fed the village, so the berry was named açaí, which was the daughter’s name backward. Hmmm. The root for the elder part of elderberry is shaky at best. Etymologists think it may have come from the word alder, which is an entirely different tree, but there you go. All hail the loganberry, which has a clear etymology! Its name comes from American horticulturist James Logan. Like the loganberry, the boysenberry was named after a botanist, Rudolf Boysen. And mul- in mulberry comes from the Latin word morum, meaning (drumroll please) mulberry! The huckle- in huckleberry comes from Middle English hurtilberry, a word which American colonists employed to label any sort of blue, black, or red berry (one must wonder how many of those New World blue, black, or red berries were actually edible). Hurtilberry came from Old English whortleberry, which may or may not have come from an earlier root meaning to want. Any berry thoughts? You know what to do. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Etymonline, Latin is Simple, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, the OED, & Dreamstime.  This week let’s change it up & appreciate a fabulous marriage of words & dance: Sarah Lamb of the Royal Ballet performing Wayne McGregor’s choreography inspired & accompanied by Virginia Woolf’s reading.
I’m hoping you’ve got about three minutes available to watch & listen. Here’s an excerpt to inspire: Words… “are the wildest, freest, most irresponsible, most unteachable of all things. Of course, you can catch them and sort them and place them in alphabetical order in dictionaries. But words do not live in dictionaries; they live in the mind. If you want proof of this, consider how often in moments of emotion when we most need words we find none. Yet there is the dictionary; there at our disposal are some half-a-million words all in alphabetical order.” Enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7rNHx8Sib8 Thanks to this week’s sources: Writing pal Bruce West, for suggesting this as a blogpost, BBC, Nowness  Idioms are fabulous things. This week, I’m celebrating idioms that include the word eat. If you could use a laugh, try reading the list aloud. Lists of idioms are inherently laughworthy. I hope you eat them up. Eat humble pie Eat away at something Eat high on the hog Eat out of someone’s hands Eat something away Eat something up Eat like a bird Eat like a horse Eat one’s hat Eat the cost Eat crow Eat dirt Have one’s cake & eat it too Eat & run Eat one’s heart out Eat one’s words Eat someone alive What’s eating you? I hope this list gives you as much joy as it gives me. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Go English, Mr. Greg English, NTC’s American Idioms Dictionary, & Fly Club.  How can the words stallion, apostle, stalk, & stout have anything to do with one another? They are all the progeny of the Proto-Indo-European root *stel-, which meant to put, stand, or put in order.
The to put or stand meaning appears to have brought us install, installment, pedestal, & the noun stalk (the verb stalk comes from an entirely different source).. The to put in order meaning appears to have given us apostle, epistle, gestalt, peristalsis & stale (which originally referred to wine or other liquids that had stood long enough to be freed from the dregs & be clear (or put in order). Sometimes getting things in order means having them come to a stop or be still, so we have the noun stall (a place for an animal in a stable) & the verb stall (become stuck or come to a stop). From this branch of the tree we also have stolid, stallion, stultify, systolic, still, stele & stout (as an appreciator of dark, hefty beer, I’d say nothing can put things in order like a pint of good stout). Well, that’s a lot of putting in order, isn't it? Thanks to this week’s sources: Collins Dictionary, The OED, Etymonline, Merriam Webster, & Dreamstime.  We English speakers have a plethora of ways to say nothing. Here’s a smattering of them.
Nothing showed up in Old English as a combination of no & thing. It originally meant insignificant thing, or thing of no consequence. Nought was born of the same roots as nothing, also during Old English. Zero comes from Sanskrit through Arabic, Latin, Italian & French, meaning the absence of all quantity. Zero is etymologically realted to the word cipher. And speaking of cipher, it showed up in the late 1400s as a label for the arithemetical symbol for zero. Unlike zero, cypher didn’t pass through Italian, but came through Old French, Medieval Latin, & Arabic from Sanskrit. Goose-egg appeared in English in 1866 on the baseball field, apparently due to the visual similarty of a zero and an egg (why the goose was responsible for the egg is anyone’s guess). Zip showed up in 1900, from student slang meaning a score of zero on a test. Nix came to English in 1789 from Middle High German, where it meant nothing. English usage of nada is attributed to Ernest Hemingway in 1933. He learned it from Spanish speakers in California. The Spanish word has its roots in a Latin & Proto-Indo-European word meaning to be born or to beget. I don’t imagine any mother would suggest that giving birth was nada, but it seems that over the years the tininess of things that are born caused the word to adopt the meaning insignificant, & from there nada came to mean nothing. If you have anything to say about all this nothing, please do. Big thanks to his week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, Etymonline, The OED, Inspired Pencil |
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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