$19.95
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Published: 13 April 2009
336 Pages
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ISBN: 9780195387070
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Bookseller Code (06)
$19.95
Paperback
Published: 13 April 2009
336 Pages
5 1/2 X 8 1/2 inches
ISBN: 9780195387070
Ebook
This title is available as an ebook. To purchase, visit your preferred ebook provider.
Bookseller Code (06)
Written in a funny, charming, and conversational style, Word Origins is the first book to offer a thorough investigation of the history and the science of etymology, making this little-known field accessible to everyone interested in the history of words.
Anatoly Liberman, an internationally acclaimed etymologist, takes the reader by the hand and explains the many ways that English words can be made, and the many ways in which etymologists try to unearth the origins of words. Every chapter is packed with dozens of examples of proven word histories, used to illustrate the correct ways to trace the origins of words as well as some of the egregiously bad ways to trace them. He not only tells the known origins of hundreds of words, but also shows how their origins were determined. And along the way, the reader is treated to a wealth of fascinating word facts. Did they once have bells in a belfry? No, the original meaning of belfry was siege tower. Are the words isle and island, raven and ravenous, or pan and pantry related etymologically? No, though they look strikingly similar, these words came to English via different routes.
Partly a history, partly a how-to, and completely entertaining, Word Origins invites readers behind the scenes to watch an etymologist at work.
Anatoly Liberman is Professor of the Humanities at the University of Minnesota. For the past seventeen years, he has been working on a new etymological dictionary of English.
The history of "dude" has been documented with amazing accuracy.
Posted on December 14, 2022
The history of "dude" has been documented with amazing accuracy.
Posted on December 7, 2022
As everybody knows, the phrase in the title, l'esprit d'escalier, refers to a good thought occurring too late.
Posted on November 30, 2022
I decided not to wait another week, let alone another four weeks, and discuss the notes and queries from my mail. As usual, I express my gratitude to those who have read the posts, added their observations, or corrected my mistakes.
Posted on November 23, 2022
We love books and movies about vampires, don't we? Everybody knows who Dracula was, and many people believe that we owe the entire myth to him. This, however, is not true. In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist deals with the history of the word "vampire."
Posted on November 16, 2022
The Oxford Etymologist answers readers' questions on the origin of the word "race", variants of "in one's stockinged feet", the folkloric creature Lady Hoonderlarly, and "bonfire."
Posted on November 9, 2022
One does not need to be an etymologist to suggest that stocking consists of "stock-" and "-ing". The trouble is that though "-ing" occurs in some nouns, it looks odd in stocking. Few English words have more seemingly incompatible senses than stock.
Posted on November 2, 2022
I have always wanted to write about the enigmatic phrase "red gold." Our characterization of color is a matter of culture, not physiology.
Posted on October 26, 2022
The origin of the word blatherskite ~ bletherskate 'foolish talk; foolish talker' is supposedly secure. The Oxford Etymologist investigates...
Posted on October 19, 2022
The origin of the word blatherskite ~ bletherskate 'foolish talk; foolish talker' is supposedly secure. The Oxford Etymologist investigates...
Posted on October 12, 2022
While trying to solve etymological riddles, we often encounter references to sound-imitation where we do not expect them, but the core examples hold no surprise. It seems that nouns and verbs describing all kinds of noises should illustrate the role of onomatopoeia, and indeed, hum, ending in m, makes one think of quiet singing (crooning) and perhaps invites peace, while drum, with its dr-, probably evokes the idea of the noise associated with this instrument.
Posted on October 5, 2022
Did heathens live in a heath, surrounded by heather? You will find thoughts on this burning question of our time at the end of today's blog post.
Posted on September 28, 2022
For a long time, the word "condom" was unprintable. Neither the original OED nor The Century Dictionary featured the word. Several venues for discovering the origin of "condom" have been tried. It surfaced in texts at the beginning of the eighteenth century, but we cannot be sure that the word was coined in England.
Posted on September 21, 2022
The mattock, a simple tool, has a name troublesome to etymologists even though it has been known since the Old English period. In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist explores a new hypothesis for the origins of "mattock".
Posted on September 14, 2022
The history of "cheek by jowl" and especially the pronunciation of "jowl" could serve as the foundation of a dramatic plot, says the Oxford Etymologist in this week's blog post.
Posted on September 7, 2022
The history of "cheek by jowl" and especially the pronunciation of "jowl" could serve as the foundation of a dramatic plot, says the Oxford Etymologist in this week's blog post.
Posted on August 31, 2022
Why do so many words beginning with sn- evoke unpleasant associations? The Oxford Etymologist answers a reader's question.
Posted on August 10, 2022
The Oxford Etymologist discusses the origin of English's loudest short word: hurrah!
Posted on August 3, 2022
The Oxford Etymologist discusses the origin of English's shortest words, including pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions.
Posted on July 27, 2022
Today, most English speakers will recognize the idiom: to pull one's leg means 'to deceive playfully, to tease.' Its origin has not been discovered. I usually stay away from guesswork, but in a blog, vague conjectures may not do anyone any harm.
Posted on July 20, 2022
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist discussed the English Spelling Reform movement.
Posted on July 6, 2022
The etymology of finger is debatable, and toe fares only a bit better.
Posted on June 29, 2022
No one doubts that "bachelor" came to Middle English at the end of the thirteenth century from Old French and meant 'a young knight." Most conjectures about the etymology of this mysterious word were offered long ago.
Posted on June 22, 2022
No one doubts that "bachelor" came to Middle English at the end of the thirteenth century from Old French and meant 'a young knight." Most conjectures about the etymology of this mysterious word were offered long ago.
Posted on June 15, 2022
Where do you find the origin and, if necessary, the meaning of never say die, never mind, and other phrases of this type? Should you look them up under never, say, die, or mind? Will they be there?
Posted on June 8, 2022
Where do you find the origin and, if necessary, the meaning of never say die, never mind, and other phrases of this type? Should you look them up under never, say, die, or mind? Will they be there?
Posted on June 1, 2022
Idioms are phrases and often pose questions not directly connected with linguistics. Linguists interested in the origin of idioms should be historians and archeologists.
Posted on May 25, 2022
Idioms are a thankful subject: one needs no etymological algebra or linguistic preparation for suggesting the origin of phrases. And yet it may be useful to explain how a professional goes about studying idioms.
Posted on May 18, 2022
The time has come to write something about the etymology of the word milk. Don't hold your breath: 'origin unknown,' that is, no one can say why milk is called milk, but then no one can say why water is called water either.
Posted on May 11, 2022
Some of the most common words appeared in English late. Yet their origin is obscure. Of course, while dealing with old words, we also encounter unexpected solutions.
Posted on April 27, 2022
Recently I have reread August Pott's essay on the word "elephant" and decided to write something about this word. I have nothing original to say about it and depend on two works: an excellent book in Italian and a detailed essay in English. Not everybody may have read them; hence my inroad on this convoluted problem.
Posted on April 20, 2022
Strange as it may seem, the origin of the verb buy remains a matter of uninspiring debate, at least partly because we don't know what this verb meant before it acquired the modern sense.
Posted on April 13, 2022
This week, the Oxford Etymologist answers readers questions in his latest etymology gleanings.
Posted on April 6, 2022
My today's word is bonfire, which turned up in texts at the end of the fifteenth century. Seven years ago, I devoted a post to it but today I know more about this tricky compound and can write the story in a different way.
Posted on March 30, 2022
This is the second and last part of the series on the origin of the word "soul." The perennial interest in the etymology of this word should not surprise us. It is our inability to find a convincing solution that causes astonishment and disappointment.
Posted on March 23, 2022
If we expect someone to save our souls, this person won't be an etymologist, because no language historian knows the origin of the word soul, and without a convincing etymology, how can anyone save the intangible substance it denotes? Yet nothing prevents us from looking at the main attempts to decipher the mysterious word.
Posted on March 16, 2022
In this week's blog post, the Oxford Etymologist dives deeper into the competing origin theories for the verb "bless"'with "curse" as an added bonus.
Posted on March 9, 2022
From God (or rather, god) to bless. But before turning to the history of the word "bless", I would like to respond to the questions asked in connection with the "good"/"God" dilemma.
Posted on March 2, 2022
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist details the etymology of the adjective "good". If it is not related to "god", then what is its origin?
Posted on February 23, 2022
A few days ago, I received a letter from a well-educated reader, who asked me whether the English words "god" and "good" are related.
Posted on February 16, 2022
"Understand" is a teaser: each of the two elements of this compound is clear, but why does it mean what it does?
Posted on February 9, 2022
In this month's round-up of questions from readers, the Oxford Etymologist tackles "see", "echo", "Baba Yaga", "masher", and more.
Posted on February 2, 2022
Today I'll try to say something about the verb "see." Once again, we'll have to admit that the more basic a word is, the less we know about its remote history.
Posted on January 26, 2022
The etymology of the word "hear" is especially tough - but life would be a dull thing is everything was clear.
Posted on January 19, 2022
The phrase in a/the twinkling of a bedpost (with the archaic variant bedstaff) means the same as in a twinkling of an eye, that is, 'very quickly,' because twinkle, when used metaphorically, refers to a rapid movement. Agreed: eyes and stars twinkle, but bedposts don't, and here is the rub.
Posted on January 12, 2022
The Oxford Etymologist is out of hibernation and picks up where he left off in mid-December. It may be profitable to return to the origin of "star", but from a somewhat broader perspective.
Posted on January 5, 2022
Nothing is known about the origin of the phrase "Milky Way." By contrast, the origin of the word "star" is not hopelessly obscure, which is good, because stars and obscurity have little in common.
Posted on December 15, 2021
Words, as linguistics tells us, are conventional signs. Some natural phenomenon is called rain or snow, and, if you don't know what those words mean, you will never guess. But everything in our consciousness militates against such a rupture between word and thing.
Posted on December 8, 2021
Both "thank" and "give" deserve our attention! And it is those two outwardly unexciting words that I'll offer today as part of our etymological feast.
Posted on December 1, 2021
Both "thank" and "give" deserve our attention! And it is those two outwardly unexciting words that I'll offer today as part of our etymological feast.
Posted on November 24, 2021
English (uncharacteristically) has two, if not even three, words for the sphere above us: sky, heaven, and firmament.
Posted on November 17, 2021
What do we call the world in which we live? The specifically Germanic noun "world" is perhaps the most puzzling word known in this area.
Posted on November 10, 2021
It is curious how often those who have tried to explain the origin of English idioms have referred to the occupation of printers. Regardless of their success, the attempts are worthy of note.
Posted on November 3, 2021
We are one more week closer to Halloween, and pumpkins are ubiquitous. How did the pumpkin get its name?
Posted on October 27, 2021
How can a ghost (any ghost) get its name, and why is the etymology of bogymen, gremlins, goblins, and spooks usually unknown?
Posted on October 20, 2021
A bit more is known about the origin of the words thaw and dew than about ice and snow. They are less impenetrable than those two, but they also contain riddles.
Posted on October 13, 2021
Winter is round the corner, and the best way to prepare for it is to read a few murky stories about the etymology of the relevant words: "ice" and "snow."
Posted on October 6, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist tackles questions from readers.
Posted on September 29, 2021
Why is searching for the origin of "ice" a forlorn hope? Because all the Germanic-speaking people had the same word for 'ice,' and yet we don't know where it came from.
Posted on September 22, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist discusses two slang idioms: "worth a Jew's eye" and "to save one's bacon".
Posted on September 15, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist dives into the lexicographical history of two puzzling English homonyms: "mother" and "haggard."
Posted on September 8, 2021
Posted on September 3, 2021
I am aware of only two English words whose origin has provoked enough passion and bad blood to inspire a thriller. The first such word is "cockney" and the second is "henchman".
Posted on August 25, 2021
The popularity of ninepence in proverbial sayings is amazing. To be sure, nine, along with three and seven, are great favorites of European folklore. No one knows for sure why just those numerals achieved such prominence.
Posted on August 18, 2021
Some homonyms are truly ancient: the words in question might sound alike or be nearly identical more than a millennium ago. But more often a newcomer appears from nowhere and pushes away his neighbors without caring for their well-being.
Posted on August 11, 2021
Chide remains a word 'of unknown origin,' even though the Online Etymological Dictionary mentions the hypothesis suggested in my 2008 An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology. Perhaps it might be interesting to some of our readers to know the history of research into the etymology of this verb.
Posted on August 4, 2021
This week's blog post concerns the origin of English "flock", as in a flock of gulls and a tuft of wool. The two flocks are not related and the origin of the first is unknown. I am unable to unravel this knot, but I can perhaps explain how the problem originated and venture a precarious hypothesis.
Posted on July 28, 2021
I have been meaning to write about homonyms for quite some time, and now this time has come. Here we are interested in one question only, to wit'why so many obviously different words are not distinguished in pronunciation, or, to change the focus of the enquiry, why language, constantly striving for the most economical and most perfect means of expression (or so it seems), has not done enough to get rid of those countless ambiguities.
Posted on July 21, 2021
Let me begin by saying that the best authorities disagree on the etymology of "beacon," and my suggestion with which I'll finish this essay is my own.
Posted on July 14, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist responds to readers' questions on "fieldfare," "sparrow," "heifer," "snide," and more.
Posted on July 7, 2021
Token is a Common Germanic word. The forms are Old English "tÄc(e)n", Old High German "zeihhan", etc. The English noun combined the senses 'sign, signal' and 'portent, marvel, wonder.' German "Zeichen" and Dutch "teken" are still alive but mean only 'indication, sign.'
Posted on June 30, 2021
Last week, I wrote about the troublesome origin of heifer. The oldest recorded form of heifer is HEAHFORE. I promised to return to the equally enigmatic- fore. I even wrote that perhaps the etymology of the bird name "fieldfare" would throw additional light on heifer. Birds often follow herds of cattle for sustenance, so that my idea is, on the face of it, not unreasonable. Just for those who may be not quite sure what bird a fieldfare is, let me explain: it is a thrush.
Posted on June 23, 2021
Twenty-five years ago, quite by chance, I looked up the etymology of heifer in a dictionary and discovered the statement: 'Origin unknown.' Other dictionaries were not much more informative, and I decided to pursue the subject. Thanks to this chance episode, etymology became my profession.
Posted on June 16, 2021
A curious exchange on the word "harebrained" in the periodical Notes and Queries in the first half of 1880 began with the statement that the word owes its origin to the idiom "as mad as a march hare." But are hares 'madder' than other wild animals? Probably not.
Posted on June 9, 2021
Eric Partridge is deservedly famous among word lovers. His main area of expertise was substandard English, that is, slang and cant. In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist offers a tribute to an indefatigable word hunter and a great expert in the field that interests many people.
Posted on June 2, 2021
Eric Partridge is deservedly famous among word lovers. His main area of expertise was substandard English, that is, slang and cant. In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist offers a tribute to an indefatigable word hunter and a great expert in the field that interests many people.
Posted on May 26, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist explores the origin of "dear" and the development of the various senses of the word.
Posted on May 19, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist revisits the word 'bodkin' and its kin.
Posted on May 12, 2021
Two things sometimes come as a surprise even to an experienced etymologist. First, it may turn out that such words happen to be connected as no one would suspect of having anything in common. Second is the ability of words to produce one another in what seems to be an arbitrary, capricious, or chaotic way, so that the entire group begins to resemble an analog of a creeping plant.
Posted on May 5, 2021
Haggis, to quote the OED, is 'a dish consisting of the heart, lungs, and liver of a sheep, calf, etc. (or sometimes of the tripe and chitterlings), minced with suet and oatmeal, seasoned with salt, pepper, onions, etc., and boiled like a large sausage in the maw of the animal.'
Posted on April 28, 2021
Etymologists often deal with a group of words that seem to be related, and yet the nature of the relationship is hard or impossible to demonstrate. Such groups are particularly instructive to investigate. I have long been interested in a possible connection between "limp" (adjective), "limp" (verb), and "lump."
Posted on April 21, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist responds to readers' queries, discussing "evil", "wicked", "sward", "hunt", "thraºÅ", "trash", and "tomorrow".
Posted on April 14, 2021
In the series on "trash" and its synonyms, I called attention to Spitzer's hypothesis on the origin of English "rubbish" and now I have unearthed Verdam's idea that Dutch "karwei" may have something in common with English "garbage." Resuscitating valuable ideas buried in the depths of old journals is an important part of etymologists' work. Convincing refutation is as valuable as agreement.
Posted on April 7, 2021
In the beginning, words for things wasted or thrown away tend to denote some concrete refuse and only later acquire a generic meaning. Yet, when several synonyms share the field, they are seldom fully interchangeable. Thus, trash, rubbish, junk, offal, and garbage either refer to different kinds of discarded objects or have different stylistic overtones. One also notices with some surprise that in Modern English, all such words are borrowings.
Posted on March 31, 2021
It is amazing how many words English has for things thrown away or looked upon as useless! The origin of some of them is transparent. Obviously, "offal" is something that falls off. Not all stories are so transparent. A case in point is "trash," the subject of today's blog post.
Posted on March 24, 2021
"Not everybody may know that 'yesterday' is one of the most enigmatic formations in the Indo-European language family." In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist explores the history of the adverb 'yesterday' and how the same word acquired two incompatible senses: 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow.'
Posted on March 17, 2021
Latin "forum" referred not only to a marketplace but also to a place of assembly for judicial and other business. Hence "forensic" meaning 'pertaining to the forum or courts of law.'
Posted on March 10, 2021
The German for 'to give a shot, to vaccinate' is "impf-en." "Impf-" is an exact cognate of English "imp." How can it be? This week, the Oxford Etymologist explores the language connection between vaccines, mischievous children, and Icelandic elves.
Posted on March 3, 2021
What is the origin of the name Louvre? Dictionaries and websites say unanimously that the sought-for etymology is unknown or uncertain. Perhaps so, but we will see.
Posted on February 24, 2021
Is English "skin" related to Greek "skÄnÄ"? The story of "skin" and some other words, partly synonymous with it, is worthy of attention.
Posted on February 17, 2021
I received a query from my colleague, who asked me what I think about a possible tie between "Sheela na gig" and the English word "gig." Therefore, I decided to devote a special post to it.
Posted on February 10, 2021
Impulses behind word formation never change. This statement surprised one of our readers. However, if we assume that most 'natural' words are, at least to some degree, sound-symbolic and/or sound-imitative (onomatopoeic), such monosyllabic complexes as kob, kab, keb, kub, kid, kat, and their likes must have arisen again and again in the course of language history, even if every time they were tied to different objects.
Posted on February 3, 2021
The overlap between English and French idioms is considerable. Familiar quotations from Classical Greek and Latin, to say nothing of the Bible, are taken for granted. A few idioms seem to have come from India, which is not surprising, considering how long British servicemen lived in that country. The Indian connection has rarely been discussed; yet it deserves a brief mention.
Posted on January 27, 2021
"Kid" has a few relatives outside English but in an English text it appeared only around 1200, in a poem so strongly influenced by the language of the Scandinavians that the fact of borrowing is incontestable: "kid" is an import from Danish.
Posted on January 20, 2021
The time has come to find out where cub came from. "Cub," which surfaced in English texts only in the early sixteenth century, turned out to be an aggressive creature: it ousted whelp, and later the verb "to cub" came into existence. The constant suppression of old words by upstarts is a process worth noticing.
Posted on January 13, 2021
As far as I can judge, the origin of "calf", the animal, contains relatively few riddles, and in this blog, I prefer not to repeat what can be found in solid dictionaries and on reliable websites. But there is a hitch in relation to the frolicsome calf, the lower leg. That is why I decided to give calf a chance...
Posted on January 6, 2021
Two types of hypotheses compete in etymology. One is learned and the other disconcertingly simple, so that an impartial observer is sometimes hard put to it to choose between them. English whelp resembles the verb yelp, obviously a sound-imitative word, like yap and yawp. Is it possible that such is the origin of whelp?
Posted on December 16, 2020
The first, perhaps surprising, thing about the words I'll address below is that language rarely associates the names of adult animals with the names chosen for their progeny. Yet the same is true of humans!
Posted on December 9, 2020
Why is there no 'master key' to the closet hiding the origin of language and all the oldest words? Historians deal with documents or, when no documents have been preserved, with oral tradition, which may or may not be reliable. The earliest epoch did not leave us any documents pertaining to the origin of language.
Posted on December 2, 2020
The posts for the last two weeks dealt with the various attempts to trace (or rather guess) the origin of the word bizarre, and I finished by saying that the word is, in my opinion, sound-imitative. In connection with this statement a caveat is in order...
Posted on November 25, 2020
This post continues the discussion of "bizarre." After the Basque etymology of this Romance adjective was rejected on chronological grounds, "bizarre" joined the sad crowd of 'words of unknown (disputable, uncertain, undiscovered) origin.' However, several good scholars have tried to penetrate the darkness surrounding it. Each offered his own solution, a situation, as we will see, that does not bode well.
Posted on November 18, 2020
Posted on November 11, 2020
It is better to be hanged for a sheep than for a lamb. The proverb has a medieval ring, but it was first recorded in 1678. The context is obvious: since the punishment is going to be the same (hanging), it pays off to commit a greater crime and enjoy its benefits while you are alive.
Posted on November 4, 2020
I decided to write this post, because I have an idea about the origin of the idiom baker's dozen, and ideas occur so seldom that I did not want this opportunity to be wasted. Perhaps our readers will find my suggestion reasonable or refute it. I'll be pleased to hear from them.
Posted on October 28, 2020
Harlot turned up in English texts in the thirteenth century, acquired its present-day sense ('prostitute') about two hundred years later, and ousted all the previous ones. Those 'previous ones' are worthy of recording...
Posted on October 21, 2020
Next comes harness, first recorded in English around 1300 with the sense 'baggage, equipment; trappings of a horse.' But around the same time, it could also mean 'body armor; tackle, gear,' as it still does in German (Harnisch). The route is familiar: from Old French to Middle English.
Posted on October 14, 2020
Some similes make sense: for example, as coarse as hemp (or heather). Hemp and heather are indeed coarse. But cool as a cucumber? Many phrases of this type exist thanks to alliteration. Perhaps at some time, somewhere, cucumbers were associated with coolness, but, more likely, the simile was coined as a joke: just listen to coo-coo in it!
Posted on October 7, 2020
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Posted on August 26, 2020
Posted on August 19, 2020
One does not have to be a linguist to know that English is full of naval metaphors and phrases. How else could it be in the language of a seafaring nation?! Dozens, if not hundreds of metaphors going back to sailors' life and experience crop up in our daily speech, and we don't realize their origin. Nor should we, for speakers are not expected to think of the etymology of the words and collocations they use.
Posted on August 12, 2020
Thanks everybody for the questions, comments, and suggestions! The state of Spelling Reform The six most promising schemes of reformed spelling, with summaries, can be found on the Society's website (The English Spelling Society). The second (virtual) session of the International English Spelling Congress will probably take place in November. If you are interested in the fate of Spelling Reform, please register (it is free).
Posted on August 5, 2020
On April 18, 2012, while discussing the etymology of shrimp, I wrote that I had once looked up the word scrumptious, to find out its origin. Much to my surprise, I read that scrumptious is perhaps sumptuous, with -cr- added for emphasis. On May 2, 2012, I attacked shrew. My romance with shr- ~ scr-words abated, but I never forgot it. Today, I'll continue those two stories and again look at shr- and scr-.
Posted on July 29, 2020
The beginning of this story appeared a week ago, on July 15, 2020 (Cut and dried, Part 2), and we found out that the Old Germanic languages had two words for 'dry': thur-s- (from which Modern English has the noun thirst; thor-s is the Gothic form) and dreag-, the parent of dry. Seeing how concrete and unambiguous the idea of dryness is, we wondered why Germanic needed two synonyms for this word.
Posted on July 22, 2020
The murky history of the verb cut was discussed two weeks ago (June 24, 2020). Now the turn of dry has come around. When people ask questions about the origin of any word, they want to know why a certain combination of sounds means what it does. Why cut, big, den, and so forth?
Posted on July 15, 2020
Response to some comments: The verb cut. The Middle Dutch, Dutch, and Low German examples (see the post for July 1, 2020) are illuminating. Perhaps we are dealing with a coincidence, because such monosyllabic verbs are easy to coin, especially if they are in at least some way expressive.
Posted on July 8, 2020
A less common synonym of the idiom cut and dried is cut and dry, and it would have served my purpose better, because this essay is about the verb cut, and two weeks later the adjective dry will be the subject of a post. But let us stay with the better-known variant.
Posted on July 1, 2020
The word knife came up in one of the recent comments. I have spent so much time discussing sharp objects (adz, ax, and sword) that one more will fit in quite naturally. The word that interests us today turned up in late Old English (cnīf) and is usually believed to be a borrowing of Old Norse knfr (both ī and designate a long vowel, as in Modern Engl. knee)
Posted on June 24, 2020
With this post behind me, I'll finally be able to beat my sword into a workable plowshare. Today, the immediate theme is the history of the word brand and its cognates, but it is also a springboard to an important conclusion.
Posted on June 17, 2020
I promised not to return to Spelling Reform and will be true to my word. The animated discussion of a month ago (see the comments following the April gleanings) is instructive, and I'll only inform the contributors to that exchange that nothing they wrote is new. It is useful to know the history of the problem being discussed, for what is the point of shooting arrows into the air?
Posted on June 11, 2020
Last week (May 27, 2020), I discussed two attempts to solve the etymology of sword. The second of them would not have deserved so much attention if Elmar Seebold, the editor of the best-known German etymological dictionary, had not cited it as the only one possibly worthy of attention. His is a minority opinion, which does not mean it is wrong, though I believe it is.
Posted on June 3, 2020
Those who have read the posts on awl, ax(e), and adz(e) (March 11, 18, and 25, 2020) will find themselves on familiar ground: once again 'origin unknown,' numerous hypotheses, and reference to migratory words. This is not surprising: people learn the names of tools and weapons from the speakers of neighboring nations (tribes), adapt, and domesticate them. Dozens of such names have roots in the remotest prehistory.
Posted on May 27, 2020
It is amazing how often the Devil is invoked in English idioms: he has certainly been given his due. Some phrases must go back to myths. The Devil and his dam reminds us of the ancient stories in which two monsters play havoc with human lives. A famous example is Grendel and his mother (Beowulf), but folklore is full of similar examples.
Posted on May 20, 2020
The readers of newspapers will have noticed the deadening repetition of the same words (I don't mean pandemic, virus, distance, or opening'those are probably unavoidable). No, everybody nowadays hunkers down (the activity formerly reserved for the greatest leaders at their secret meetings), while many admire Sweden, where people trust their government.
Posted on May 13, 2020
I have read two comments on my post of April 29, 2020 and John Cowan's post and came to the expected conclusion: even those who favor the idea of the Reform will never agree on what should change and in what order changes should be instituted. Every suggestion makes sense.
Posted on May 6, 2020
I keep receiving letters explaining to me the futility of all efforts to reform English spelling and even extolling the virtues of the present system. I will spend minimal time while rehashing what has been said many times and come to the point as soon as possible. The seemingly weighty but not serious objections are three. 1) If we reform spelling, we'll lose a lot of historical information. Quite true, but spelling is not a springboard to an advanced course on etymology.
Posted on April 29, 2020
Would you like to be as learned as Dr. Doddipol? Those heroes of our intensifying similes! Cooter Brown (a drunk), Laurence's dog (extremely lazy), Potter's pig (bow-legged), Throp's wife (a very busy person, but so was also Beck's wife)'who were they? I have at least once written about them, though in passing (see the post for October 28, 2015). They show up in sayings like as drunk as'¦, as lazy as'¦, as busy as'¦, and so forth. Many people have tried to discover the identity of those mysterious characters.
Posted on April 22, 2020
I think I should clarify my position on the well-known similarities between and among some languages. In the comment on the March gleanings (April 1, 2020), our correspondent pointed to a work by Professor Tsung-tung Chang on the genetic relationship between Indo-European and Chinese. I have been aware of this work for a long time, but, since I am not a specialist in Chinese linguistics and do not know the language, I never mentioned my skeptical attitude toward it in print or in my lectures.
Posted on April 14, 2020
It is amazing how many words like aloof exist in English. Even for 'fear' we have two a-formations: afraid, which supplanted the archaic afeard, and aghast. Aback, aboard, ashore, asunder'a small dictionary can be filled with them (but alas and alack do not belong here). The model is productive: consider aflutter and aglitter. One feature unites those words: they cannot be used attributively. Indeed, an asunder man and an astride rider do not exist.
Posted on April 8, 2020
Should it be business as usual with the Oxford Etymologist? Closing the blog until better days will probably not benefit anybody. The terrain is like a minefield, but I'll continue gleaning.
Posted on April 1, 2020
I am picking up where I left off last week. The word adz(e) was coined long ago and surfaced more than once in Old English texts. It had several local variants, and its gender fluctuated: adesa was masculine, while adese was feminine. Also, eadesa and adusa have come down to us. Apparently, the tool had wide currency.
Posted on March 25, 2020
Wherever we look for the history of the names of instruments and tools, we confront a similar problem: the available material is either too copious or too scanty. Last week (March 11, 2020), we followed a hectic but inefficient hunt for the etymology of the word awl, and I promised a continuation: a post on adz (spelled as adze in British English).
Posted on March 18, 2020
Posted on March 11, 2020
The use of metaphors is relatively late in the modern European languages; it is, in principle, a post-Renaissance phenomenon. The same holds for the idioms based on metaphors. No one in the days of Beowulf and perhaps even of Chaucer would have coined the phrase to lose one's marbles 'to become insane,' even if so long ago boys were as intent on collecting marbles as was Tom Sawyer.
Posted on September 4, 2019
As is known, glamour is a spelling variant of glamor even in American English. The question I received was about the connection between glamour and grammar. The word glamour appeared in printed books only in the 18th century. Â It occurred in Scottish ballads and meant 'magic, enchantment.'
Posted on August 28, 2019
This is a continuation of the subject broached cautiously on July 17, 2019. Since the comments were supportive, I'll continue in the same vein. Perhaps it should first be mentioned that sometimes the line separating language study from the study of history, customs, and rituals is thin.
Posted on August 7, 2019
As always, many thanks to those who left comments and to those who sent me emails and asked questions. Rather long ago, I wrote four posts on the etymology and use of the word brown (see the posts for September 24, October 1, October 15, and October 22, 2014). The origin of the animal name beaver was mentioned in them too. Here I'll say what I know about the subject.
Posted on July 31, 2019
We read that Helgi, one of the greatest heroes of Old Norse poetry, sneaked, disguised as a bondmaid, into the palace of his father's murderer and applied himself to a grindstone, but so bright or piercing were his eyes (a telltale sign of noble birth, according to the views of the medieval Scandinavians) that even a man called Blind (!) became suspicious.
Posted on July 24, 2019
Idioms, especially if we add proverbs and familiar quotations to them, are a shoreless ocean. Especially numerous are so-called gnomic sayings (aphorisms) like make hay while the sun shines, better safe than sorry, and a friend in need is a friend indeed. Their age is usually hard or even impossible to determine. Since most of them reflect people's universal experience, they may be very old.
Posted on July 17, 2019
Three years ago, I discussed the origin of several kl' formations, all of which were sound-symbolic: kl- appeared to suggest cleaving, cluttering, and the like. In this context, especially revealing is the etymology of cloth. The problem with such consonant groups is that there is rarely anything intrinsically symbolic in them.
Posted on July 10, 2019
Like every journalist (and a blogger is a journalist of sorts), I have an archive. Sometimes I look through the discarded clippings and handwritten notes and find them too good to throw away. Below, I'll reproduce a few rescued tidbits.
Posted on July 3, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on June 26, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on June 19, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on June 12, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on June 5, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on May 29, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on May 22, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on May 15, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on May 8, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on May 1, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on April 24, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on April 17, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on April 10, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on April 3, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on March 27, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on March 20, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on March 13, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on March 6, 2019
There is no reason why we should not continue our journey and go to Coventry, a town in Warwickshire, 94 miles away from London. The name was widely known to those who lived through World War II because of the devastating bombing raid on Coventry in November 1940.
Posted on February 27, 2019
When one reads the obsolete phrase go to, go to, the meaning is still understood quite well. After to, one 'hears' the word hell. However, directions vary, and the origin of the idioms beginning with go to is less trivial than it may seem.
Posted on February 20, 2019
It is hard to believe how recent the verb hike is. Slightly more than a hundred years ago, The Century Dictionary (CD) found a slot for hike only in the supplement.
Posted on February 13, 2019
In December and January, the ground, as we know from the poem about two quarrelling little kittens, was covered with frost and snow, so that there has not been too much for me to glean, but a few crumbs were worth picking up.
Posted on February 6, 2019
What else is there to say about robin? Should I mention the fact that 'two Robin Redbreasts built their nest within a hollow tree' and raised a family there?
Posted on January 30, 2019
Some syllables seem to do more work than they should. For example, if you look up cob and its phonetic variants (cab ~ cub) in English dictionaries, you will find references to all kinds of big and stout things, round masses (lumps), and 'head/top.'
Posted on January 23, 2019
In Surrey (a county bordering London), and not only there, people used to say: 'The robin and the wren are God's cock and hen' (as though the wren were the female of the robin, but then the wren is indeed Jenny). In Wales, the wren is also considered sacred.
Posted on January 16, 2019
'Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake scuffled down from the bank and said: 'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather ulster'(and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson'.
Posted on January 9, 2019
Having sown my wild oats (see the post for December 12, 2018), I can now afford the luxury of looking at the origin of the word oat. It would be unfair to introduce the holiday season by discussing a word of unknown etymology. A Christmas carol needs a happy end, and indeed I have something reassuring to say.
Posted on December 19, 2018
For many years I have been studying not only the derivation and history of words but also the origin of idioms. No Indo-European forms there, no incompatible vowels, not consonant shifts, but the problems are equally tough.
Posted on December 12, 2018
Posted on December 5, 2018
In the long history of this blog, I have rarely touched on the origin of plant names, but there have been posts on mistletoe (December 20, 2006) and ivy (January 11, 2017). Some time ago, a letter came with a question about the etymology of gorse, and I expect to devote some space to this plant name and its two synonyms.
Posted on November 28, 2018
In the long history of this blog, I have rarely touched on the origin of plant names, but there have been posts on mistletoe (December 20, 2006) and ivy (January 11, 2017). Some time ago, a letter came with a question about the etymology of gorse, and I expect to devote some space to this plant name and its two synonyms.
Posted on November 21, 2018
This post returns to loaf, noun, which, incidentally, has nothing to do with loaf, verb (but see the picture)! Since loaf, from hlaif-, appears to be a more ancient word for 'bread' (as noted in the posts for October 17 and October 24), people must have coined bread, to designate the product that was different from the old one.
Posted on November 7, 2018
I have received a letter with a query about whether kibosh might be a borrowing from Hebrew. Both the Hebrew and the Yiddish hypotheses on kibosh are discussed in detail in the book by Gerald Cohen, Stephen Goranson, and Matthew Little on this intractable word (Routledge, 2018).
Posted on October 31, 2018
Bread may not be a very old word, but it is old enough, and, whatever its age, its origin has not been discovered. However, the harder the riddle, the more interesting it is to try to solve it. Even if the answer evades us, it does not follow that we have learned nothing along the way.
Posted on October 24, 2018
Posted on October 17, 2018
So where did the word bride come from? Granted, the initial meaning of bride is not entirely clear, but neither is it hopelessly opaque. Whatever the interpretation, the bride has always been a woman who will soon become a wife, and the mystery surrounding the sought-after etymology comes as a surprise, regardless of whether the initial sense of the noun was 'the woman to be married,' 'the woman after the consummation of the marriage rite,' or even 'daughter-in-law' ~ 'a new female member of the adopting family.'
Posted on October 10, 2018
Many thanks to those who have commented on the recent posts and written me privately. My expertise is in Germanic, with occasional timid inroads into the rest of Indo-European. Therefore, I cannot answer questions about Arabic and Chinese. Below, I'll say something about Hittite, but, obviously, for my information I depend on the authority of others.
Posted on October 3, 2018
The blog named 'The Oxford Etymologist,' which started on March 1, 2008, and which appears every Wednesday, rain or shine (this is Post no. 663), owes many of its topics to association. Some time ago, I wrote about the puzzling Gothic verb liugan 'to lie, tell falsehoods' and 'to marry' (August 15, 2018) and about the etymology of the English verb bless (October 12, 2016).
Posted on September 26, 2018
Not too long ago (12 October 2016), I wrote a post about the etymology of the verb bless and decided that my next topic would be blood, because bless and blood meet, even if in an obscure way. But more pressing business'the origin of liver (21 March 2018) and kidney (11 April 2018)'prevented me from meeting that self-imposed deadline. Today, Dracula-like, I am ready to tackle blood.
Posted on September 19, 2018
Of course is such a trivial phrase that few, I am afraid, will be interested in its history. And yet, what can be stranger than the shape of this most common two-word group?
Posted on September 12, 2018
To find out how you pay your dues, you have to read the whole post. It would be silly to begin with the culmination. The story will be about phonetics and table talk (first about phonetics).
Posted on September 5, 2018
In a jiffy: Stephen Goranson has offered several citations of this idiom (it means 'in a trice'), possibly pointing to its origin in sailor slang. English is full of phrases that go back to the language of sailors, some of which, like tell it to the marines, by and large, and the cut of one's jib (to cite a few), are well-known.
Posted on August 29, 2018
As a matter of fact, it is a long story, because the distant origin of hate'the word, not the feeling'is far from clear. As usual, we should try to determine the earliest meaning of our word (for it may be different from the one we know) and search for the cognates in and outside Germanic. At the beginning of the month (see the post for 1 August 2018), a good deal was said about the Gothic language.
Posted on August 22, 2018
In 1882, Mark Twain gave a short speech titled 'On the Decay of the Art of Lying,' not his best or wittiest. I assume that Oscar Wilde did not miss the published text of that speech, for seven years later, he brought out  a kind of treatise in the form of a dialogue with a similar title, namely, 'The Decay of Lying'An Observation,' one of his most powerful and brilliant (as always, too brilliant) essays. Â
Posted on August 15, 2018
It would be unwise to leave the topic of emotions (see the posts on anger, dread, and fear), without saying something about hate and hatred. Although hate refers to intense dislike, it is curious to observe how diluted the word has become: today we can hate orange juice, a noisy neighbor, even our own close relative, and of course we hate not finding the objects we have mislaid. For some reason, to dislike, have little regard for, and resent are not enough for expressing our dissatisfaction.
Posted on August 8, 2018
Work on a project for reformed spelling is underway (under way). Three comments and letters have come to my notice. Masha Bell called our attention to useful and useless double letters. No doubt, account and arrive do not need their cc and rr, and I am all for abolishing them. I won't live long enough to see acquire spelled as akwire, but perhaps aquire will satisfy future generations?
Posted on August 1, 2018
There is a feeling that idioms resist interference. A red herring cannot change its color any more than the leopard can change its spots. And yet variation here is common. For instance, talk a blue streak coexists with swear (curse) a blue streak. One even finds to swear like blue blazes (only the color remains intact). A drop in the bucket means the same as a drop in the ocean. We can cut something to bits or to pieces, and so forth.
Posted on July 25, 2018
There will be no revelations below. I owe all I have to say to my database and especially to the papers by Ian F. Hancock (1979) and Dingxu Shi (1992). But surprisingly, my folders contain an opinion that even those two most knowledgeable researchers have missed, and I'll mention it below for what it is worth. Several important dictionaries tell us that pidgin is a 'corruption' of Engl. business, and I am not in a position to confirm or question their opinion.
Posted on July 18, 2018
My discussion of idioms does not rest on a solid foundation. In examining the etymology of a word, I can rely on the evidence of numerous dictionaries and on my rich database. The linguists interested in the origin of idiomatic phrases wade through a swamp. My database of such phrases is rather rich, but the notes I have amassed are usually 'opinions,' whose value is hard to assess. Sometimes the origin of a word is at stake.
Posted on July 11, 2018
The post on pilgarlic appeared on 13Â June 2018. I knew nothing of the story mentioned in the comment by Stephen Goranson, but he always manages to discover the sources of which I am unaware. The existence of Pilgarlic River adds, as serious people might say, a new dimension to the whole business of pilgarlic. Who named the river? Is the hydronym fictitious? If so, what was the impulse behind the coinage? If genuine, how old is it, and why so called? What happened in 1883 that aroused people's interest in that seemingly useless word?
Posted on July 4, 2018
Fear is a basic emotion in all living creatures, because it makes them recognize and avoid danger. It is therefore no wonder that so many words for it have been coined. Language can describe fear by registering the physical reaction to it, for instance, shaking and trembling (quite a few words for 'fear' in the Indo-European languages belong here) or trying to flee from the source of danger, as in Greek phob³s, known from the suffix -phobe and all kinds of phobias (ph©bomai 'I fear; I flee from'; its Russian cognate beg- designates only 'running').
Posted on June 27, 2018
It is well-known that words for abstract concepts at one time designated concrete things or actions. 'Love,' 'hatred,' 'fear,' and the rest developed from much more tangible notions. Â The words anger, anguish, and anxious provide convincing examples of this trend. All three are borrowings in English: the first from Scandinavian, the second from French, and the third from Latin. In Old Norse (that is, in Old Icelandic), angr and angra meant 'to grieve' and 'grief' respectively.
Posted on June 20, 2018
The word pilgarlic (or pilgarlik and pilgarlick) may not be worthy of a post, but a hundred and fifty years ago and some time later, people discussed it with great interest and dug up so many curious examples of its use that only the OED has more. (Just how many citations the archive of the OED contains we have no way of knowing, for the printed text includes only a small portion of the examples James A. H. Murray and his successors received.) There is not much to add to what is known about the origin of this odd word, but I have my own etymology of the curious word and am eager to publicize it.
Posted on June 13, 2018
With one exception, I'll take care of the most recent comments in due time. For today I have two items from the merry month of May. The exception concerns Italian becco 'cuckold.' I don't think the association is with the word for 'beak; nose.' Becco 'cuckold' is probably from becco 'male goat.' If so, the reference must be to the horns, as discussed in the previous post.
Posted on June 6, 2018
Still with the herd: Man, as they say, is a gregarious animal, and wearing horns could become the male of our species, but etymology sometimes makes unpredictable leaps. I of course knew that Italian becco means 'cuckold' (the image is the same in all or most of the Romance languages, and not only in them), but would not have addressed this sensitive subject, had a comment on becco not served as a provocation. So here are some notes on cuckoldry from a linguistic point of view.
Posted on May 30, 2018
Etymology is a peaceful area of study. But read the following: 'Spick and Span.'These words have been sadly tortured by our etymologists'we shall, therefore, do our best to deliver them from further persecution. Tooke is here more than usually abusive of his predecessors; however, Nemesis, always on the watch, has permitted him to give a lumbering, half Dutch, half German, etymology; of 'shining new from the warehouse''as if such simple colloquial terms were formed in this clumsy round-about way.
Posted on May 23, 2018
A story that keeps recycling the same episodes tends to become boring. So today I'll say goodbye to my horned friends, though there is so much left that is of interest. In dealing with cows, bulls, bucks, and the rest, an etymologist is constantly made to choose among three possibilities: an ancient root with a transparent etymology (a rare case), a migratory word, or a sound-imitative formation. Like cattle breeders, words are nomads, but some are more sedentary than the others.
Posted on May 16, 2018
The buck stops nowhere: it has conquered nearly all of Eurasia. The Modern English word refers to the stag. At one time, it was a synonym of he-goat, or Billy goat. But Old Engl. buc 'stag' seems to have coexisted with bucca 'Billy goat.' Perhaps later they merged. German Bock is a rather general designation of 'male animal,' such as 'ram' (or 'wether'; wether is a nearly forgotten word, though still recognizable in bellwether), 'stag,' and others; it is a common second element of compounds like Schafbock (Schaf 'sheep').
Posted on May 9, 2018
When people began to domesticate the cow, what could or would they have called the animal? Ideally, a moo. This is what children do when they, Adam-like, begin to invent names for the objects around them. However, the Old English for 'cow' was cū, that is, coo, if we write it the modern way, not mū. Obviously, cows don't say coo. Pigeons do. Therefore, we are obliged to treat this word in the traditional way, that is, to look for the cognates, reconstruct the most ancient form, and so on.
Posted on May 2, 2018
Part 1: A Turning Point in the History of Spelling Reform? On 30 May 2018 the long-awaited International Spelling Congress will have its first online meeting. 'The Congress is intended to produce a consensus on an acceptable alternative to our current unpredictable spelling system. The goal is an alternative which maximizes improved access to literacy but at the same time avoids unnecessary change.
Posted on April 25, 2018
As long as there were no towns, people did not need the word street. Yet in our oldest Germanic texts, streets are mentioned. It is no wonder that we are not sure what exactly was meant and where the relevant words came from. Quite obviously, if a word's meaning is unknown, its derivation will also remain unknown. Paths existed, and so did roads. Surprisingly, the etymology of both words (path and road) is debatable.
Posted on April 18, 2018
It is perfectly all right if your answer to the question in the title is 'no.' I am not partial. It was not my intention to continue with the origin of organs, but I received a question about the etymology of kidney and decided to answer it, though, as happened with liver (see the post for 21 March 2018), I have no original ideas on this subject.
Posted on April 11, 2018
Thanks to all of our readers who have commented on the previous posts and who have written me privately. Some remarks do not need my answer. This is especially true of the suggestions concerning parallels in the languages I don't know or those that I can read but have never studied professionally. Like every etymologist, I am obliged to cite words and forms borrowed from dictionaries, and in many cases depend on the opinions I cannot check.
Posted on April 4, 2018
One of the questions I received was about dent, indent, and indenture. What do they have in common with dent- 'tooth,' as in dental and dentures? Dent, which surfaced in texts in the 13th century, meant 'stroke, blow' (a noun; obviously, not a derivative of any Latin word for 'tooth') and has plausibly been explained as a variant of its full synonym or doublet dint.
Posted on March 28, 2018
Etymological bodybuilding is a never-ceasing process. The important thing is to know when to stop, and I'll stop soon, but a few more exercises may be worth the trouble. Today's post is about liver. What little can be said about this word has been said many times, so that an overview is all we'll need. First, as usual, a prologue or, if you prefer, a posy of the ring.
Posted on March 21, 2018
To an etymologist the names of some organs and body parts pose almost insoluble problems. A quick look at some of them may be of interest to our readers. I think that in the past, I have discussed only the words brain and body (21 February 2007: brain; 14 October 2015: body). Both etymologies are hard, for the words are local: brain has a rather inconspicuous German cognate, and the same holds for body. I risked offering tentative suggestions, which were followed by useful, partly critical comments. As usual, I see no reason to repeat what I said in the past and would like to stress only one idea. Etymologists, when at a loss for a solution, often say that the inscrutable word could enter Indo-European or Germanic, or Romance from some unknown, unrecorded language (such languages are called substrates).
Posted on March 14, 2018
So long, a formula at parting ('good-bye') is still in use, unlike mad hatter and sleeveless errand, the subjects of my recent posts, and people sometimes wonder where it came from. I have little of substance to say about the formula's origin, but, before I say it, I would like to make the point I have made so many times before.
Posted on March 7, 2018
Everybody's path to etymology: From time to time I receive questions about etymology as a profession. Not long ago, someone from a faraway country even expressed the wish to get a degree in etymology. I can refer to my post of April 2, 2014. This month, a correspondent asked me to say something about why I became an etymologist. The history of my career cannot be interesting to too many of our readers, so I'll be brief and rather tell a story.
Posted on February 28, 2018
My database on please the pigs is poor, but, since a question about it has been asked by an old and faithful correspondent, I'll say about it what I can. Perhaps our readers will be able to contribute something to the sought-for etymology. When a word turns out to be of undisclosed or hopelessly obscure origin, we take the result more or less in stride, but it comes to many as a surprise to hear that the circumstances surrounding the emergence of an idiom are beyond reconstruction.
Posted on February 21, 2018
The most ancient roots: The question concerned the root rÅ- that is said to underlie the English words oar and row. Where did the root come from? This question is almost equal to the more basic one, namely: 'How did human language come into being?' The concept of the root is ambiguous. When we deal with living languages, we compare words like work, works, worked, rework, worker, and the rest and call their common part their root.
Posted on February 14, 2018
Odds and ends: I am delighted to say that in January I received unusually many questions. When this blog came into existence, the idea was that I would be flooded by 'notes and queries,' as happens to word columnists who work for newspapers. That is why the last week of every month was reserved for answers. But all these years the traffic has been modest, and sometimes my replies were limited to what I had read in the comments. January and the beginning of February 2018 have been an exception; hence the extended 'gleanings.'
Posted on February 7, 2018
My most recent post (mad as a hatter) aroused a good deal of criticism. The reason is clear: I did not mention the hypothesis favored in the OED (mercury poisoning). Of course, when I quoted the medical explanation of long ago, I should have written the last set of hypotheses'¦ instead of the last hypothesis. I find all medical explanations of the idiom untenable, and I should have been explicit on this point, rather than hiding behind polite silence.
Posted on January 31, 2018
Posted on January 24, 2018
Not too long ago, one of our constant correspondents proposed the etymology of Greek koup 'oar.' I do not know the origin of that word and will probably never know. Koup did not show up in my most detailed dictionary of Classical Greek, and I suspect that we are dealing with a relative late coinage. By way of compensation, I decided to write something about the origin of Engl. oar and about some other words connected with it.
Posted on January 17, 2018
From time to time I receive questions too long for my monthly gleanings. The same happened last week. A reader wanted to know the origin of the eena, meena (or eenie, meenie) rhyme. Although not much can be said with certainty about this matter, a few facts have been established. The Internet devotes a lot of space to this 'jingle.'
Posted on January 10, 2018
I seldom, if ever, try to be 'topical' (I mean the practice of word columnists to keep abreast of the times and discuss the words of the year or comment on some curious expression used by a famous personality), but the calendar has some power over me. The end of the year, the beginning of the year, the rite of spring, the harvest'those do not leave me indifferent.
Posted on January 3, 2018
At the end of December, it is natural to look back at the year almost spent. Modern etymology is a slow-moving coach, and great events seldom happen in it. As far as I know, no new etymological dictionaries have appeared in 2017, but one new book has. It deals with the word kibosh, and I celebrated its appearance in the November 'Gleanings.'
Posted on December 27, 2017
Many things are new. The vocabulary of the Germanic languages shows its great potential when new objects have to be described. Even to characterize people wearing shiningly new clothes English has a picturesque phrase, namely, he/she has come (or stepped) out of the bandbox.
Posted on December 20, 2017
This post is in answer to a correspondent's query. What I can say about the etymology of job, even if condensed, would be too long for my usual 'gleanings.' More important, in my opinion, the common statement in dictionaries that the origin of job is unknown needs modification. What we 'know' about job is sufficient for endorsing the artless conclusions drawn long ago. It would of course be nice to get additional evidence, but there is probably no need to search for it and no hope to dig it up.
Posted on December 13, 2017
See the previous posts with the same title. We are approaching the end of the drama. It will be a thriller without a denouement, a tragedy without catharsis, but such are most etymological dramas. Putting the kibosh on the origin of a hard word or phrase is an almost impossible endeavor. Heraldry for etymologists and a note on unlikely candidates - It has been said, and for good reason, that, whenever people played cards, every man whose unpopularity made him hated by the people and bearing as arms nine lozenges could be referred to as the curse of Scotland.
Posted on December 6, 2017
A time-consuming kibosh - Long ago (19 May 2010), I wrote a post on the origin of the mysterious word kibosh, part of the idiom to put the kibosh on 'to put an end to something.' The discussion that followed made me return to this subject in 28 July 2010, and again three years later (14 August 2013). Since that time, the word has been at the center of attention of several researchers, and last month a book titled Origin of Kibosh by Gerald Cohen, Stephen Goranson, and Matthew Little appeared (Routledge Studies in Etymology.
Posted on November 29, 2017
Battles, butchers, and tyrants - CULLODEN. The battle of Culloden took place on 16 April 1746 between the forces of the Catholic 'Young Pretender' Charles Edward Stuart, who was at the head of the Jacobites, and those of the government, led by Prince William, the Duke of Cumberland.
Posted on November 22, 2017
The origin of this mysterious phrase, "nine of diamonds," has been discussed for over two hundred years. Nor are surveys wanting. I cannot say anything on this subject the world does not know, and I have no serious preferences for any of the relatively promising hypotheses.
Posted on November 15, 2017
I have never heard anyone use the idiom to go woolgathering, but it occurs in older books with some regularity, and that's why I know it. To go woolgathering means 'to indulge in aimless thought, day dreaming, or fruitless pursuit.' Sometimes only absent-mindedness is implied.
Posted on November 8, 2017
There is a good word aftermath. Aftercrop is also fine, though rare, but, to my regret, afterglean does not exist (in aftermath, math- is related to mow, and -th is a suffix, as in length, breadth, and warmth). Anyway, I sometimes receive letters bypassing OUP's official address. They deal with etymology and usage.
Posted on November 1, 2017
Singular versus plural. What feel(s) like failed relationships'¦. The dilemma is as old as the hills: English speakers have always felt uncertain about the number after what. An exemplary treatment of this problem will be found in the old editions of H. W. Fowler's Modern English Usage (the entry what 2).
Posted on October 25, 2017
I keep returning to my sheep and rams because the subject is so rich in linguistic wool. Last time (see the post for 11 October 2017), I looked at the numerous etymological attacks on sheep and came to rather uninspiring results.
Posted on October 18, 2017
This is a sequel to the previous post of 4 October 2017. Last time I mentioned an embarrassment of riches in dealing with the origin of the word sheep, and I thought it might not be improper to share those riches with the public.
Posted on October 11, 2017
Animal names are so many and so various that thick books have been written about their origins, and yet some of the main riddles have never been solved.
Posted on October 4, 2017
Posted on September 27, 2017
Posted on September 20, 2017
In the Indo-European languages, most words for 'mother,' 'father,' 'son,' and 'daughter' are very old'most (rather than all), because some have been replaced by their rivals. Thus, Latin filia 'daughter' is the feminine of filius 'son,' and filius has nothing to do with son, which is indeed ancient.
Posted on September 13, 2017
Bogus, tantrum, and dander are fairly recent additions to the vocabulary of English. Like so many newcomers, they are words of unknown etymology. My greatest ambition is to promote their status from 'unknown' to 'uncertain.'
Posted on September 6, 2017
Dark. I am sorry for the unavoidable pun, but the origin of most adjectives for 'dark' is obscure. This is what etymological dictionaries of German tell us about dunkel and finster.
Posted on August 30, 2017
I do not know the etymology of fake, and no one knows, but, since the phrase fake news is in everybody's mouth, I am constantly asked where the word fake came from. I'll now say what I can about this subject, in order to be able to refer to this post in the future and from now on live in peace.
Posted on August 23, 2017
For decades the English-speaking world has been wondering where the word nerd came from. The Internet is full of excellent essays: the documentation is complete, and all the known hypotheses have been considered, refuted, or cautiously endorsed. I believe one of the proposed etymologies to be convincing (go on reading!), but first let me say something about nut.
Posted on August 16, 2017
Last week, we looked at the history of the conjunction if, and it turned out that the Dutch for if is of. The fateful question asked 'at dawn,' when 'Scheherazade' had to stop her tale, was: 'Are English if and of related?'
Posted on August 9, 2017
The post of 21 June 2017 on the 'dwarfs of our vocabulary' was received so well that I decided to return to them in the hope that the continuation will not disappoint our readers. Those dwarfs have a long history and have been the object of several tall tales.
Posted on August 2, 2017
First of all, I would like to thank our readers for their good wishes in connection with the 600th issue of The Oxford Etymologist, for their comments, and suggestions. In more than ten years, I must have gone a-gleaning about 120 times.
Posted on July 26, 2017
Like the history of some other words denoting numbers, the history of hundred is full of sticks and stones. To begin with, we notice that hundred, like dozen, thousand, million, and billion, is a noun rather than a numeral and requires an article (compare six people versus a hundred people); it also has a regular plural (a numeral, to have the plural form, has to be turned into a noun, or substantivized, as in twos and threes, at sixes and sevens, on all fours, and the like).
Posted on July 19, 2017
The reason for such a strange topic will become clear right away. The present post is No. 600 in the career of 'The Oxford Etymologist.' I wrote my first essay in early March 2006 and since that time have not missed a single Wednesday.
Posted on July 12, 2017
No one likes boasters. People are expected to be modest (especially when they have nothing to show). For that reason, the verbs meaning 'to boast' are usually 'low' or slangy (disparaging) and give etymologists grief and sufficient reason to be modest.
Posted on July 6, 2017
The scourge of the Middle Ages was leprosy. No other disease filled people with equal dread. The words designating this disease vary. Greek l©prÄ is a substantivized feminine adjective (that is, an adjective turned into a noun'a common process: compare Engl. the blind and blinds, with two ways of substantivization).
Posted on June 28, 2017
I receive all kinds of questions about etymology. Unless they are responses to my posts, they usually concern slang and exotic words. No one seems to care about and, as, at, for, and their likes. Conjunctions and prepositions are taken for granted, even though their origin is sometimes obscure and their history full of meaning.
Posted on June 21, 2017
John Cowan pointed out that queer 'quaint, odd' can be and is still used today despite its latest (predominant) sense. Yes, I know. Quite intentionally, I sometimes use the phrase queer smile. It usually arouses a few embarrassed grins. My students assume that a man in the winter of his days is so un-cool that he does not know what this adjective now means.
Posted on June 14, 2017
In 1708, London witnessed the appearance of The British Apollo, or Curious Amusements for the INGENIOUS. To which are Added the most Material Occurrences Foreign and Domestick. Perform'd by a Society of GENTLEMEN. VOL. I. Printed for the Authors, by F. Mayo, at the Printing-Press, against Water-Lane in Fleet-Street.
Posted on June 7, 2017
I am picking up where I left off last week. At first sight, nothing could be more straightforward than the adjective still. It has always meant 'fixed, not moving.' We sit still, come to a standstill, and enjoy still lifes (that is, pictures of living things in a state of rest).
Posted on May 31, 2017
From time to time, various organizations invite me to speak about the history of words. The main question I hear is why words change their meaning. Obviously, I have nothing new to say on this subject, for there is a chapter on semantic change in countless books, both popular and special.
Posted on May 24, 2017
To keep somebody or something at bay means 'to keep a dangerous opponent at a distance; to hold off, ward off a disaster, etc.' The very first interpreters of this idiom guessed its origin correctly. They stated that bay here means 'to bark' and that at bay refers to hunting.
Posted on May 17, 2017
The previous post on Nostratic linguistics was also part of the 'gleanings,' because the inspiration for it came from a query, but a few more tidbits have to be taken care of before summer sets in.
Posted on May 10, 2017
The colleague who wrote me a letter is a specialist in Turkic and a proponent of Nostratic linguistics. He mentioned the Turkic root syn-, which, according to him, can mean 'to test, prove; compete; prophesy; observe; body, image, outward appearance,' and wondered whether, within the framework of Nostratic linguistics, this root can be compared with the root of Engl. sin.
Posted on May 3, 2017
The phrase is outdated, rare, even moribund. Those who use it do so to amuse themselves or to parade their antiquarian tastes. However, it is not quite dead, for it sometimes occurs in books published at the end of the nineteenth century.
Posted on April 26, 2017
Today I am beginning where I left off last week. As we have seen, Old Icelandic sannr meant both 'true' and 'guilty.' Also, the root of this word can be detected in the word for 'being' (Latin sunt, etc.).
Posted on April 19, 2017
This blog was launched on 1 March 2006, four or even five editors ago (to paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut's statement about his wives), and is now in the twelfth year of its existence. It has been appearing every Wednesday since that date, and today's number is 587.
Posted on April 12, 2017
In a way, this is the continuation of the previous week's gleanings, because I owe today's subject to a question from a student of Old English. Although I cannot say anything new about carouse, the story is mildly instructive.
Posted on April 5, 2017
Many thanks for the comments. One of the questions was about the dialect that could be used for the foundation of a new norm. No spelling can reflect the pronunciation of all English speakers.
Posted on March 29, 2017
We are so used to the horrors of English spelling that experience no inconvenience at reading the word knowhow. Why don't know and how rhyme if they look so similar? Because such is life.
Posted on March 22, 2017
Yes, there is every reason to bother. Read the following: 'One of the most common expressions in everyday life, and one which is generally used by all classes, is the expression 'Don't bother me!' and the origin of the word bother has so frequently bothered me that I have spent some time in tracing its etymology.
Posted on March 15, 2017
Why Tom, Dick, and Harry? Generic names? If so, why just those? From Suffolk to Yorkshire people speak about some Laurence and some Lumley, whose fame rests only on the fact that both have alliterating lazy dogs (as lazy as L.'s dog, as laid him down to bark). Other farmers had worse luck.
Posted on March 8, 2017
From time to time people share with me their versions of Spelling Reform. I rarely respond to such letters, because, unfortunately, I have little to say. The problem, as I see it, is not the ideal version of the reform but the reality of its implementation. The choir is happy, and we keep preaching to it.
Posted on March 1, 2017
One good thing about English spelling is that, when you look for some oddity in it, you don't have to search long. So why do we have the letter u in boulder (and of course in Boulder, the name of a town in Colorado)? If my information is reliable, Boulder was called after Boulder Creek.
Posted on February 22, 2017
Unlike Alice, who was advised to begin at the beginning and stop only when she came to an end, I'd rather begin at the end. The English-speaking world is interested in the Cheshire cat only because Lewis Carroll mentioned it. The origin of the proverbial grin has never been explained, so that, if you hope to receive an enlightening answer from this post, you can very well stop here.
Posted on February 15, 2017
James Murray showed great caution in his discussion of the Modern English words spelled and pronounced as brash (see Part I of this essay). It remains unclear how many of them are related. One of the homonyms seems to go back to French, but even that word is of Germanic origin.
Posted on February 8, 2017
One of the queries I received was about the words dimple, dump, dumps, and a few others sounding like them. This is a most confusing group, the main reason being the words' late attestation (usually Middle and Early Modern English). Where had they been before they came to the surface? Nowhere or just in 'oral tradition'? Sometimes an association emerges, but it never goes too far.
Posted on February 1, 2017
Lat week, I discussed the hardships endured by an etymologist who decides to investigate the origin of English br- words, and promised to use that post as an introduction to the story of brash. Today, I'll try to make good on part of my promise.
Posted on January 25, 2017
Two weeks ago, I promised to deal with the word brash, but, before doing so, I would like to make it clear that we are approaching a minefield. Few people, except for professional etymologists, think of words in terms of phonetic or semantic groups.
Posted on January 18, 2017
Last week's post was about the proverb: 'Good wine needs no bush,' and something was said about ivy as an antidote to good and bad wine. So now it may not be entirely out of place to discuss the origin of the word ivy, even though I have an entry on it my dictionary.
Posted on January 11, 2017
A Happy New Year! It has arrived, in full accordance with The Oxford Etymologist's bold promise. Once upon a time, the ability to see into the future was called second sight (clairvoyance is too bookish).
Posted on January 4, 2017
The New Year is looming! I can write a most edifying post about 2017, or rather about what happened a hundred years ago, in 1917, but this is an etymological blog, so I, a hard-working cobbler, will stick to my last.
Posted on December 28, 2016
When we deal with old languages, Jacob Grimm's rule works rather well. He suggested that homonyms are usually related words whose meanings had diverged too far for us to recognize their original unity.
Posted on December 21, 2016
That words travel from land to land is no secret. I do not only mean the trivial borrowings of the type known so well from the history of English. For instance, more than a thousand years ago, the Vikings settled in most of Britain, and therefore English is full of Scandinavian words.
Posted on December 14, 2016
The true people of the mist are not the tribesman of Haggard's celebrated novel but students of etymology. They spend their whole lives in the mist (or in the fog) and have little hope to see the sun.
Posted on December 7, 2016
I keep receiving this question with some regularity (once a year or so), and, since I have answered it several times, I'll confine myself to a few very general remarks. Etymology is a branch of historical linguistics dealing with the origin of words. It looks at the sound shape and meaning of words and at the cultural milieu in which words were coined. Quite often a word has related forms in several languages, and all of them have to be compared.
Posted on November 30, 2016
The strange exclamation in the title means 'Fiddlesticks! Humbug! Nonsense!' Many people will recognize the phrase (for, among others, Dickens and Agatha Christie used it), but today hardly anyone requires Betty Martin's help for giving vent to indignant amazement. However, the Internet is abuzz with questions about the origin of the idiom, guarded explanations, and readers' comments.
Posted on November 23, 2016
This is a postscript to last week's post on fog. To get my point across, as they say, let me begin with a few short remarks on word origins, according to the picture emerging from our best dictionaries.
Posted on November 16, 2016
'Fog everywhere. Fog up the river,'¦ Fog down the river'¦.' This is Dickens (1852). But in 1889 Oscar Wilde insisted that the fogs had appeared in London only when the Impressionists discovered them, that is, they may have been around for centuries, but only thanks to the Impressionists, London experienced a dramatic change in its climate.
Posted on November 9, 2016
The verb curse, as already noted, occurred in Old English, but it has no cognates in other Germanic languages and lacks an obvious etymon. The same, of course, holds for the noun curse. The OED keeps saying that the origin of curse is unknown.
Posted on November 2, 2016
Mr. Madhukar Gogate, a retired engineer from India, has written me several times, and I want to comment on some of his observations. He notes that there is no interest in the reform in Great Britain and the United States. I have to agree.
Posted on October 26, 2016
Curse is a much more complicated concept than blessing, because there are numerous ways to wish someone bad luck. Oral tradition ('folklore') has retained countless examples of imprecations. Someone might want a neighbor's cow to stop giving milk or another neighbor's wife to become barren.
Posted on October 19, 2016
Strangely, both bless and curse are rather hard etymological riddles, though bless seems to pose less trouble, which makes sense: words live up to their meaning and history, and bless, as everybody will agree, has more pleasant connotations than curse.
Posted on October 12, 2016
As usual, let me offer my non-formulaic, sincere thanks for the comments, additions, questions, and corrections. I have a theory that misspellings are the product of sorcery, as happened in my post on the idiom catch a crab (in rowing). According to the routine of many years, I proofread my texts with utmost care.
Posted on October 5, 2016
Caution is a virtue, but, like every other virtue, it can be practiced with excessive zeal and become a vice (like parsimony turning into stinginess). The negative extreme of caution is cowardice.
Posted on September 28, 2016
Last week some space was devoted to the crawling, scratching crab, so that perhaps enlarging on the topic 'Crab in Idioms' may not be quite out of place. The plural in the previous sentence is an overstatement, for I have only one idiom in view. The rest is not worthy of mention: no certain meaning and no explanation. But my database is omnivorous and absorbs a lot of rubbish. Bibliographers cannot be choosers.
Posted on September 21, 2016
My travel through the English kr-words began with the verb creep, for I have for a long time tried to solve its mystery. On the face of it, there is no mystery. The verb has existed in Germanic from time immemorial, with cognates all over the place.
Posted on September 14, 2016
This post has been written in response to a query from our correspondent. An answer would have taken up the entire space of my next 'gleanings,' and I decided not to wait a whole month.
Posted on September 7, 2016
Those who have followed this series will remember that English kl-words form a loose fraternity of clinging, clinking, and clotted-cluttered things. Clover, cloth, clod, cloud, and clout have figured prominently in the story.
Posted on August 31, 2016
There was a desperate attempt to find a valid Greek cognate for cloth, but such a word did not turn up. One way out of the difficulty was to discover a Greek noun or verb beginning with sk- and refer its s to what is known as s-mobile ('movable s'). Movable s is all over the place. For instance, the English cognate of German kratzen is scratch (the same meaning).
Posted on August 24, 2016
All words, especially kl-words, and no play will make anyone dull. The origin of popular sayings is an amusing area of linguistics, but, unlike the origin of words, it presupposes no technical knowledge. No grammar, no phonetics, no nothin': just sit back and relax, as they say to those who fly overseas first class. So here is another timeout.
Posted on August 17, 2016
I keep clawing at the bars of the cage I built for myself. But first a digression. Walter W. Skeat wrote numerous notes on English etymology, some of which he eventually put together and published in book form. Much to my regret, not too many kl-words attracted his attention. But I was amused to discover that the verb clop means not only the sound made by shoes or hoofs but also 'to cling, adhere to.'
Posted on August 10, 2016
Perhaps the story would not have been worth telling if German and Dutch klein, the closest cognates of Engl. clean, did not mean 'small.' Long ago, on 4 July 2007, I devoted half of my post to the adjective mad.
Posted on August 3, 2016
As I have observed in the past, the best way for me to make sure that I have an audience is to say something deemed prejudicial or wrong. Then one or more readers will break their silence, and I'll get the recognition I deserve (that is, my comeuppance).
Posted on July 27, 2016
In anticipation of the post on clean, I decided to say something about the idioms in which clean figures prominently, but chose only those which have the structure as clean as.
Posted on July 20, 2016
Last week, I mentioned Francis A. Wood's rhyme words and rhyme ideas and cited his example cloud and crowd. In my life, such a pair is gleaning and cleaning.
Posted on July 13, 2016
Engl. cloud belongs so obviously with clod and its kin that there might not even be a question of its origin (just one more lump), but for the first recorded sense of clūd in Old English, which was 'rock, cliff.'
Posted on July 6, 2016
Once again, no gleanings: the comments have been too few, and there have been no questions. Perhaps when the time for a real rich harvest comes, I'll start gleaning like a house on fire. When last week I attacked the verb clutter, I planned on continuing with the kl-series; my next candidates were cloud and cloth.
Posted on June 29, 2016
In an old post, I once referred to Jack London's Martin Eden, a book almost forgotten in this country and probably in the rest of the English-speaking world. Martin is not Jack London's self-portrait; yet the novel is to a great extent autobiographical.
Posted on June 22, 2016
I expected that my series on dogs would inspire a torrent of angry comments. After all, dog is one of the most enigmatic words in English etymology, but the responses were very few. I am, naturally, grateful to those who found it possible to say something about the subject I was discussing for five weeks, especially to those who liked the essays.
Posted on June 15, 2016
My series on the etymology of dog and other nouns with canine roots has come to an end, but, before turning to another subject, I would like to say a few moderately famous last words. For some reason, it is, as already mentioned, just the names of the dog that are particularly obscure in many languages (the same holds for bitch and others).
Posted on June 8, 2016
The origin of Engl. dog will not look like a uniquely formidable problem if we realize that the names of our best quadruped friend are, from an etymological point of view, impenetrable almost all over the world. The literature on dog is huge, and the conjectures are many.
Posted on June 1, 2016
Here is a phrase whose origin seems to be known, but, as this does not mean that everybody knows it, a short discussion may not be out of place. I have such a huge database of idioms that once in six weeks or so I am seized with a desire to share my treasures with the public.
Posted on May 25, 2016
By this time, the thrust of the posts united by the title 'Not a dog's chance' must be clear. While dealing with some animal names, we plod through a swamp (or a bog, or a quagmire) and run into numerous monosyllabic words of varying structure (both vowels and consonants alternate in them), lacking a clear etymology, and designating several creatures, sometimes having nothing to do with one another (for instance, 'doe' and 'grasshopper,' though this is an extreme case).
Posted on May 18, 2016
Unlike tyke, bitch can boast of respectable ancestors, because its Old English form (bicce) has been recorded. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology notes that bicce is obscurely related to Old Icelandic bikkja (the same meaning). The OED online never uses the phrase obscurely related, and this is a good thing, for this verbal formula, which so often occurred in the past, is itself obscure.
Posted on May 11, 2016
The word dog is the bªte noire of English etymology. Without obvious cognates anywhere (the languages that have dog are said to have borrowed it from English), it had a shadowy life in Old English but managed to hound from its respectable position the ancient name of man's best friend, the name it has retained in the rest of Germanic.
Posted on May 4, 2016
Responses to my plea for suggestions concerning spelling reform were very few. I think we can expect a flood of letters of support and protest only if at least part of the much-hoped-for change reaches the stage of implementation. I received one letter telling me to stop bothering about nonsense and to begin doing something sensible.
Posted on April 27, 2016
To reconstruct an ancient root with a measure of verisimilitude is not too hard. However, it should be borne in mind that the roots are not the seeds from which words sprout, for we compare such words as are possibly related and deduce, or abstract their common part. Later we call this part 'root,' tend to put the etymological cart before the horse, and get the false impression that that common part generates or produces words.
Posted on April 20, 2016
In the recent post on bosom, I wrote that one day I would perhaps also deal with breast. There is nothing new I can say about it, but perhaps not all of our readers know the details of the word's history and the controversy about its origin.
Posted on April 13, 2016
The proverb in the title of this post rarely, if ever, occurs in modern literature and may even have been forgotten but for the title of Dorothy Sayers' novel. However, at one time it was well-known, and extensive literature is devoted to it. The publications appeared not only in the indispensable Notes and Queries, American Notes and Queries, and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine but also in such great newspapers and periodicals as The British Apollo and Churchman's Shilling Magazine, to say nothing of Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom.
Posted on April 6, 2016
Preparation for the Spelling Congress is underway. The more people will send in their proposals, the better. On the other hand (or so it seems to me), the fewer people participate in this event and the less it costs in terms of labor/labour and money, the more successful it will turn out to be. The fate of English spelling has been discussed in passionate terms since at least the 1840s.
Posted on March 30, 2016
Last week, I discussed the role of taboo in naming animals, a phenomenon that often makes a search for origins difficult or even impossible. Still another factor of the same type is the presence of migratory words. The people of one locality may have feared, hunted, or coexisted in peace with a certain animal for centuries. They, naturally, call it something.
Posted on March 23, 2016
The idea of today's post was inspired by a question from a correspondent. She is the author of a book on foxes and wanted more information on the etymology of fox. I answered her but thought that our readers might also profit by a short exploration of this theme. Some time later I may even risk an essay on the fully opaque dog. But before coming to the point, I will follow my hero's habits and spend some time beating about the bush and covering my tracks.
Posted on March 16, 2016
Last week I mentioned my 'strong suspicion' that bosom has the same root ('to inflate') as the verb boast. As a matter of fact, it was a conviction, not a suspicion, but I did not want to show my cards too early. Before plunging into matters etymological, perhaps something should be said about the word's bizarre spelling.
Posted on March 9, 2016
Not too long ago I discussed the origin of the verb brag, and already then knew that the turn of boast would soon come round. The etymology of boast is not transparent, but, in my opinion, it is not beyond recovery. Rather than following the immortal royal advice ('begin at the beginning, go on to the end and then stop'), I'll reverse my route and begin at the end.
Posted on March 2, 2016
It is the origin of idioms that holds out the greatest attraction to those who care about etymology. I have read with interest the comments on all the phrases but cannot add anything of substance to what I wrote in the posts. My purpose was to inspire an exchange of opinions rather than offer a solution. While researching by Jingo, I thought of the word jinn/ jinnee but left the evil spirit in the bottle.
Posted on February 24, 2016
Last week, in discussing the antiquated idiom hang out the broom, I mentioned kick the bucket and will now return to it. In the entry bucket2, the OED, usually reticent about the origin of such phrases, mentioned what Murray considered might be the most plausible idea. I am writing this essay for two reasons.
Posted on February 17, 2016
We know even less about the origin of idioms than about the origin of individual words. This is natural: words have tangible components: roots, suffixes, consonants, vowels, and so forth, while idioms spring from customs, rites, and general experience. Yet both are apt to travel from land to land and be borrowed. Who was the first to suggest that beating (or flogging) a willing horse is a silly occupation, and who countered it with the idea that beating a dead horse is equally stupid?
Posted on February 10, 2016
The lines above look (and sound) like identical oaths, but that happens only because of the ambiguity inherent in the preposition by. No one swears by my name, while Mr. Jingo has not written or published anything. Nowadays, jingoism 'extreme and aggressive patriotism' and jingoist do not seem to be used too often, though most English speakers still understand them, but in Victorian England, in the late nineteen-seventies and some time later, the words were on everybody's lips.
Posted on February 3, 2016
Some of the most enjoyable comments and questions are those that combine scholarship and play. One of our correspondents pointed out that Engl. strawberry, if pronounced as a Slavic word, means (literally) 'from grass take.' Indeed it does! In the Russian s travy beri, only one ending does not quite match Engl. s-traw-berry.
Posted on January 27, 2016
Those who read word columns in newspapers and popular journals know that columnists usually try to remain on the proverbial cutting edge of politics and be 'topical.' For instance, I can discuss any word I like, and in the course of more than ten years I have written essays about words as different as dude and god (though my most popular stories deal with smut; I have no idea why).
Posted on January 20, 2016
It so happens that I have already touched on the first and the last member of the triad whether'wether'weather in the past. By a strange coincidence, the interval between the posts dealing with them was exactly four years: they appeared on 19 April 2006 (weather) and 21 April 2010 (whether) respectively.
Posted on January 13, 2016
If things happened as they are suggested in the title above, I would not have been able to write this post, and, considering that 2016 has just begun, it would have been a minor catastrophe. People of all ages and, as they used to say, from all walks of life want to know something about word origins, but they prefer to ask questions about 'colorful' words (slang).
Posted on January 6, 2016
I often refer to the English etymological dictionary by Hensleigh Wedgwood, and one of our correspondents became seriously interested in this work. He wonders why the third edition is not available online. I don't know, but I doubt that it is protected by copyright. It is even harder for me to answer the question about the changes between the second and the third edition.
Posted on December 30, 2015
The author of the pronouncement in the title above is a matter of dispute, and we'll leave his name in limbo, where I believe it belongs. The Internet will supply those interested in the attribution with all the information they need. The paradoxical dictum (although the original is in French, even Murray's OED gave its English version in the entry blunder) is ostensibly brilliant but rather silly.
Posted on December 23, 2015
In their search for the origin of blunt, etymologists roamed long and ineffectually among similar-sounding words and occasionally came close to the sought-for source, though more often look-alikes led them astray. One of such decoys was Old Engl. blinn. Blinn and blinnan meant 'cessation' and 'to cease' respectively, but how can 'cease' and 'devoid of sharpness; obtuse' be related?
Posted on December 16, 2015
Yes, you understood the title and identified its source correctly: this pseudo-Shakespearean post is meant to keep you interested in the blog 'The Oxford Etymologist' and to offer some new ideas on the origin of the highlighted adjective.
Posted on December 9, 2015
Obviously, I would not have embarked on such a long manhunt if I did not have my idea on the origin of the troublesome word. It will probably end up in the dustbin (also known as ash heap) of etymology, but there it will come to rest in good company.
Posted on December 2, 2015
It is true that the etymology of homo confirms the biblical story of the creation of man, but I am not aware of any other word for 'man' that is akin to the word for 'earth.' Latin mas (long vowel, genitive maris; masculinus ends in two suffixes), whose traces we have in Engl. masculine and marital and whose reflex, via French, is Engl. male, referred to 'male,' not to 'man.'
Posted on November 25, 2015
This is the continuation of the story about the origin of the Germanic word for man. Last week I left off after expressing great doubts about the protoform that connected man and guma and tried to defend the Indo-European girl from an unpronounceable name. As could be expected, in their attempts to discover the origin of man etymologists cast a wide net for words containing m and n.
Posted on November 18, 2015
The title will probably be recognized at once: it is part of the last line of Kipling's poem 'If.' Unfortunately, Kipling's only son John never became a man; he was killed in 1918 at the age of eighteen, a casualty of his father's overblown patriotism. Our chances to reach consensus on the origin of the word man are not particularly high either.
Posted on November 11, 2015
For a long time I have been dealing with the words bad, bed, bud, body, bodkin, butt, bottom, and their likes. The readers who have followed the discussion will probably guess from today's title that now the time of path has come round.
Posted on November 4, 2015
I keep receiving comments and questions about idioms. One of our correspondents enjoys the phrase drunk as Cooter Brown. This is a well-known simile, current mostly or exclusively in the American south. I can add nothing to the poor stock of legends connected with Mr. Brown. Those who claim that they know where such characters came from should be treated with healthy distrust.
Posted on October 28, 2015
As promised in the previous post, I am going from body to bottom. No one attacked my risky etymology of body. Perhaps no one was sufficiently interested, or (much more likely) the stalwarts of the etymological establishment don't read this blog and have no idea that a week ago a mine was planted under one of their theories.
Posted on October 21, 2015
I am not sure that any lexicographer or historian of linguistics thought of writing an essay on James Murray as a speaker and journalist, though such an essay would allow the author to explore the workings of Murray's mind and the development of his style. (Let me remind our readers that Murray, 1837-1915, died a hundred years ago.)
Posted on October 14, 2015
Few people would today have remembered the word bodkin if it had not occurred in the most famous of Hamlet's monologues. Chaucer was the earliest author in whose works bodkin occurred. At its appearance, it had three syllables and a diphthong in the root, for it was spelled boidekin. The suffix -kin suggested to John Minsheu, our first English etymologist (1617), that he was dealing with a Dutch noun.
Posted on October 7, 2015
It so happened that I have been 'gleaning' the whole month, but today I'll probably exhaust the questions received during the last weeks. From a letter: 'I have been told Norwegians would say forth and back rather that back and forth since it was logical for them to envision going away, then coming back.'
Posted on September 30, 2015
Not too long ago, I promised to return to the origin of b-d words. Today I'll deal with Engl. bad and its look-alikes, possibly for the last time'not because everything is now clear (nothing is clear), but because I have said all I could, and even this post originated as an answer to the remarks by our correspondents John Larsson (Denmark) and Olivier van Renswoude (the Netherlands).
Posted on September 23, 2015
What is the origin of the now popular phrase in the house, as in 'Ladies and gentlemen, Bobby Brown is in the house'? I don't know, but a short explanation should be added to my response. A good deal depends on the meaning of the question 'What is the origin of a certain phrase?' If the querist wonders when the phrase surfaced in writing, the date, given our resources, is usually ascertainable.
Posted on September 16, 2015
This is the continuation of last week's 'gleanings.' Once again, I hasten to thank our correspondents for their questions and comments and want only to say something on the matter of protocol. When I receive private letters, I refer to the writers as 'our correspondents' because I cannot know whether they want to have their names bandied about in the media.
Posted on September 9, 2015
I received a question about the greatest etymologists' active mastery of foreign languages. It is true, as our correspondent indicated, that etymologists have to cast their nets wide and refer to many languages, mainly old (the deader, the better). So would the masters of the age gone by have felt comfortable while traveling abroad, that is, not in the tenth but in the nineteenth century?
Posted on September 2, 2015
Posted on March 1, 2006
Posted on March 8, 2006
Posted on March 15, 2006
This blog column has existed for a month. It was launched with the idea that it would attract questions and comments. If this happens, at the end of each month the rubric "Monthly Gleanings" will appear. Although in March I have not been swamped with the mail, there is enough for a full post. Also, one question was asked privately, but in connection with the blog, so that I think I may answer it here.
Posted on March 29, 2006
Posted on March 22, 2006
Posted on April 5, 2006
The shape of the word weather has changed little since it was first attested in the year 795. In Old English, it had d in place of th; the rest, if we ignore its present day spelling with ea, is the same. But its range of application has narrowed down to 'condition of the atmosphere,' while at that time it also meant 'air; sky; breeze; storm.'
Posted on April 19, 2006
Posted on April 26, 2006
Posted on May 10, 2006
Posted on May 3, 2006
Posted on May 17, 2006
Posted on May 24, 2006
Posted on May 31, 2006
Posted on June 14, 2006
Posted on June 7, 2006
Posted on June 28, 2006
Posted on June 21, 2006
Posted on July 12, 2006
Posted on July 19, 2006
Posted on July 26, 2006
Posted on August 2, 2006
Posted on August 9, 2006
While working on my etymological database, I looked through countless old journals and magazines. I especially enjoyed reading the reviews of etymological dictionaries published in their pages. Some were shockingly abrasive, even virulent; others delightfully chatty and unabashedly superficial.
Posted on August 16, 2006
Our egalitarian predilections have partly wiped out the difference between 'vulgar' and 'cool,' and the idea of being judgmental or appearing better educated than one's neighbor scares the living daylights out of intellectuals. Dictionaries, we are told, should be descriptive, not prescriptive.
Posted on August 23, 2006
Many words resemble mushrooms growing on a tree stump: they don't have common roots but are still related. I will use few examples, because if you've seen one, you've seen them all. Nothing is known about the origin of cub, which surfaced in English texts only in 1530 (that is, surprisingly late).
Posted on August 30, 2006
On August 23, I appeared on the 'Midmorning' show on Minnesota Public Radio. Many of you called in with questions, to some of which I could give immediate answers. But, the origin of several words I did not remember offhand and I promised to look them up in my database. Here are my responses.
Posted on September 6, 2006
Only children and foreigners express their surprise when they discover that the verb long does not mean 'lengthen' or that belong has nothing to do with longing. When we grow up, we stop noticing how confusing such similarities of form coupled with differences in meaning are.
Posted on September 13, 2006
Posted on September 20, 2006
Some time ago I received a question about the word macabre. This adjective first appeared in Old French, in the phrase dancemacabre. The story begins with the fresco of the Dance Macabre, painted in 1424 in the Church of Innocents at Paris. The English poet and monk John Lydgate knew the fresco.
Posted on September 27, 2006
The Oxford Eytmologist is at it again...
Posted on October 4, 2006
The Oxford Eytmologist takes on more words.
Posted on October 11, 2006
Anatoly Liberman ponders longevity.
Posted on October 18, 2006
Monthly Gleanings.
Posted on October 25, 2006
Anatoly weights in on Slang.
Posted on November 1, 2006
Oddest English Spellings, Part 5.
Posted on November 8, 2006
Anatoly Liberman's weekly column.
Posted on November 15, 2006
Anatoly's monthly gleanings.
Posted on January 31, 2007
Superstitions, unlike knowledge, spread quickly. Students' spelling breaks every instructor's heart, and we ask ourselves the question: How did so many people from all over the country, come to the unanimous conclusion that occurrence should be spelled occurance? It is, I believe, a huge conspiracy.
Posted on November 22, 2006
Anatoly Liberman answers some questions readers have submitted.
Posted on November 29, 2006
Anatoly Liberman looks at filler words, like and you know.
Posted on December 6, 2006
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origins of the phrase "Attaboy!"
Posted on December 13, 2006
Anatoly Liberman weekly column.
Posted on December 20, 2006
Anatoly Liberman's Monthly Gleanings.
Posted on December 27, 2006
Anatoly Liberman looks at the many meanings of the word "troll."
Posted on January 3, 2007
Anatoly Liberman's weekly column.
Posted on January 10, 2007
Anatoly Liberman's weekly column. The Oddest English Spellings Part Six.
Posted on January 17, 2007
A closer look at strumpets.
Posted on February 7, 2007
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origin of the word "dildo."
Posted on February 14, 2007
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origin of the word "brain."
Posted on February 21, 2007
Anatoly Liberman's monthly gleaings.
Posted on February 28, 2007
It is Anatoly's Anniversary!!!!
Posted on March 7, 2007
Anatoly looks at the oddest English spellings.
Posted on March 14, 2007
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word "cocktail."
Posted on March 28, 2007
Anatoly answers this month's questions.
Posted on July 25, 2007
Anatoly's monthly gleanings.
Posted on April 11, 2007
Anatoly's weekly column.
Posted on April 18, 2007
A stream of questions about the origin of loo never dries up...
Posted on April 25, 2007
Anatoly's April gleanings.
Posted on May 2, 2007
Anatoly looks at some of the oddest English spellings.
Posted on May 9, 2007
Posted on May 16, 2007
Posted on May 23, 2007
Anatoly looks at where pimps and faggots come together.
Posted on June 6, 2007
Anatoly reflects on his work in the past month.
Posted on May 30, 2007
Anatoly weighs in on pimps and faggots.
Posted on June 13, 2007
Anatoly weighs in on curmudgeon and catawampus.
Posted on June 20, 2007
Anatoly looks at confusables.
Posted on June 27, 2007
Anatoly is feeling a bit "mad" this week.
Posted on July 4, 2007
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word cockney.
Posted on July 11, 2007
Even a quick look at the history of words meaning 'break' shows how often they begin with the sound group br-. Break has cognates in several Germanic languages. The main Old Scandinavian verb was different (compare Modern Swedish bryta, Norwegian bryte, and so forth), but it, too, began with br-.
Posted on July 18, 2007
Anatoly looks at the origins of words we use today.
Posted on August 1, 2007
Anatoly Liberman looks at the death of the adverb.
Posted on August 8, 2007
Anatoly looks at weird spellings.
Posted on August 15, 2007
When I was growing up, I read Paul de Kruif's book Microbe Hunters so many times that I still remember some pages by heart. Two chapters in the book are devoted to Pasteur. The second is called 'Pasteur and the Mad Dog.' A book about great word hunters would similarly enthral the young and the old.
Posted on August 22, 2007
Anatoly answers questions gleaned from your comments.
Posted on August 29, 2007
Language changes through variation. Some people 'sneaked', others 'snuck'. The two forms may coexist for a long time, or one of them may be considered snobbish. Once the snobs die out, the form will go to rest with them. Or the snobs may feel embarrassed of being in the minority and 'go popular'.
Posted on September 5, 2007
The Devil is in people's thoughts, and his names are many. One of them is the obscure 'Old Nick'. The word nicker 'water sprite' explained as an old participle 'washed one' - is unrelated to it. Then there is 'nickel'. The term was easy to coin, but copper could not be obtained from the nickel ore.
Posted on September 12, 2007
Anatoly looks at the origins of directionals.
Posted on September 19, 2007
Anatoly looks at some questions from the past month.
Posted on September 26, 2007
Anatoly delves into word history for our entertainment.
Posted on October 3, 2007
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origin of the word "gig."
Posted on October 10, 2007
Anatoly looks at north and south.
Posted on October 17, 2007
Anatoly prepares for Halloween with the origins of witch.
Posted on October 24, 2007
Anatoly answers this month's questions and explains the intriguing history of the words element and hocus pocus.
Posted on October 31, 2007
How did we ever come up with the spelling for scythe? Anatoly looks at the history of conjoined letters "sc".
Posted on November 7, 2007
Anatoly uncovers how sneaked became snuck.
Posted on November 14, 2007
Anatoly explores pretty's myriad of meanings from unlikely origins.
Posted on November 21, 2007
Anatoly answers readers' questions and looks at the origins of bigot.
Posted on November 28, 2007
Anatoly looks at strong and weak past participles.
Posted on December 12, 2007
Anatoly takes a look at negative prefixes.
Posted on December 5, 2007
Anatoly divulges how seasons make up the year.
Posted on December 19, 2007
Anatoly answers questions that have come up throughout the month.
Posted on December 26, 2007
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word "blizzard."
Posted on January 2, 2008
Anatoly looks at everyday buzzwords.
Posted on January 9, 2008
Is the spellchecker compromising language history? Anatoly weighs in on spelling reform.
Posted on January 16, 2008
Anatoly considers the addition of suffixes.
Posted on January 23, 2008
Anatoly responds to comments on spelling reform.
Posted on January 30, 2008
Anatoly looks at the connection between the words "robber" and "robe."
Posted on February 6, 2008
Anatoly explains the key to "understanding".
Posted on February 13, 2008
Anatoly turns puckish.
Posted on February 20, 2008
Anatoly responds to comments on spelling reform.
Posted on February 27, 2008
Anatoly searches for the origin of hubba-hubba.
Posted on March 5, 2008
Two opposite forces act on the brain of someone who sets out to trace the origin of a word. To cite the most famous cases, coward is supposedly a 'corruption' of cowherd and sirloin came into being when an English king dubbed an edible loin at table (Sir Loin). Such fantasies have tremendous appeal.
Posted on March 12, 2008
It is not fortuitous that many words like 'puzzle', 'conundrum', and 'quiz' are themselves puzzles from an etymological point of view. They arose as slang, sometimes as student slang, and as we don't know the circumstances in which they were coined, our chances of discovering their origin is low.
Posted on March 19, 2008
Anatoly answers questions posed in March.
Posted on March 26, 2008
This story might be titled 'Some Words Have a Reputation to Live Up To,' (Part Two). While tracing the convoluted history of 'charade', I promised to devote some space to 'charlatan'. The element 'char-' unites them, and in scholarly works they have frequently been mentioned in one breath.
Posted on April 2, 2008
Anatoly examines the origin of the word fiasco.
Posted on April 9, 2008
Posted on April 16, 2008
Anatoly wonders why we double up on names in certain words.
Posted on April 23, 2008
Anatoly explores the history of spelling with the letter w.
Posted on April 30, 2008
Anatoly explores the history of OK.
Posted on May 7, 2008
Anatoly seeks the origin of "snob".
Posted on May 14, 2008
Anatoly explores why some words naturally go together.
Posted on May 21, 2008
Questions for the month are answered.
Posted on May 28, 2008
Anatoly gives a candid take on etymology.
Posted on June 4, 2008
Anatoly finds the appropriate sustenance for spelling reformers.
Posted on June 18, 2008
Anatoly answers questions.
Posted on June 25, 2008
Anatoly looks at apostrophes.
Posted on July 2, 2008
Anatoly looks at the word "Buckeye".
Posted on July 16, 2008
Anatoly celebrates a word pioneer.
Posted on July 9, 2008
Posted on July 23, 2008
Anatoly looks at the nickname "Hoosier".
Posted on July 30, 2008
Anatoly looks at the word "pinkie".
Posted on August 13, 2008
Anatoly looks at the word "haberdasher".
Posted on August 6, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "Berserk".
Posted on August 20, 2008
Anatoly Liberman answers questions.
Posted on August 27, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at guilt and shame.
Posted on September 10, 2008
Anatoly Liberman recounts the times when phonetics were used to determine the death, expulsion or release of a group of people, and takes a closer at the development of homonyms.
Posted on September 17, 2008
Anatoly answers questions.
Posted on September 24, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "hello".
Posted on October 1, 2008
Anatoly Liberman relates his adventures with plurals.
Posted on October 8, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the use of the split infinitive.
Posted on October 15, 2008
Anatoly looks at features of Indo-European languages.
Posted on October 22, 2008
Anatoly Liberman answers questions based on last month's posts.
Posted on October 29, 2008
Hello. In connection a previous post, I received two questions about the word 'hello'. The first concerned the repertory of h-interjections in the languages of the world. In 1924 Ernst Schwentner brought out a booklet titled 'The Primary Interjections in the Indo-European Languages' (in German).
Posted on November 5, 2008
Anatoly explains why it is hard to find the origins of the word "hobo".
Posted on November 12, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks into the Dutch origins of words.
Posted on November 19, 2008
Anatoly's November gleanings.
Posted on November 26, 2008
Anatoly looks at the possible origins of the word "conundrum".
Posted on December 3, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origins of words that look-alike.
Posted on December 10, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origins of the word "gibberish".
Posted on December 17, 2008
Anatoly's post has seasonal cheer.
Posted on December 24, 2008
In the course of this month, two journalists have approached me with questions related to political scandals. My answers, neither of which has been printed in full, may perhaps interest the readers of our blog. They regarded the typicality of phrases such as Ponzi schemes, and using names as verbs.
Posted on December 31, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the story on the word "helpmeet."
Posted on January 7, 2009
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word "chicanery."
Posted on January 14, 2009
Anatoly Liberman looks at the oddest English spellings.
Posted on January 21, 2009
Anatoly's January gleanings.
Posted on January 28, 2009
Anatoly's second installment of January gleanings.
Posted on February 4, 2009
A word, some scholars say, can have several etymologies. This is a misleading formulation. Various factors contribute to a word's meaning and form. All of them should be taken into account and become part of the piece of information we call etymology, because words are like human beings.
Posted on February 11, 2009
Anatoly considers the origins of the phrases 'grass widow' and 'straw man.'
Posted on February 18, 2009
Anatoly answers questions.
Posted on February 25, 2009
Anatoly reviews possible origins of the word 'ghetto.'
Posted on March 4, 2009
Long ago I wrote a column with the title 'Tit for Tat.' Engl. tip for tap also existed at one time. Words like tip, tap, top, tick, tack, tock, tit, tat, tot, as well as those with voiced endings like tid- (compare tidbit), tad, and tod ('bush; fox'), are ideal candidates for sound imitative coinages.
Posted on March 11, 2009
Anatoly explores the origins of the word 'gooseberry,' and its related phrases.
Posted on March 18, 2009
Anatoly answers questions about word origins.
Posted on March 25, 2009
Anatoly explores the origins of the word 'pet.'
Posted on April 1, 2009
Anatoly deliberates the origins of the words 'spoon,' 'fork,' and 'knife.'
Posted on April 8, 2009
Anatoly muses on the origins of the words 'peace' and 'war.'
Posted on April 15, 2009
Anatoly investigates the origin of the word 'race.'
Posted on April 22, 2009
Anatoly answers questions.
Posted on April 29, 2009
Anatoly analyzes some interesting differences in spelling and pronunciation between American and British English.
Posted on May 6, 2009
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word "Wednesday".
Posted on May 13, 2009
Anatoly looks at the word "theodolite".
Posted on May 20, 2009
Anatoly's monthly gleanings.
Posted on May 27, 2009
Anatoly looks at the word "bistro".
Posted on June 3, 2009
Anatoly Liberman demonstrates the difficulty of tracing the origins of every day words--especially considering the lack of consensus among linguists.
Posted on June 10, 2009
Oxford Etymologist, Anatoly Liberman, traces the roots of the word "yeomen."
Posted on June 17, 2009
Anatoly Liberman chronicles the development of the "American variety of English" from its colonial origins through today.
Posted on June 24, 2009
Anatoly Liberman's monthy gleanings.
Posted on July 1, 2009
Anatoly Liberman describes how "misspent political zeal turned 'squaw' into an ethnic slur."
Posted on July 8, 2009
Anatoly Liberman explores various cultural forms and meanings of the term "scalawag."
Posted on July 22, 2009
Anatoly Liberman tours the history of the word tram.
Posted on August 5, 2009
Anatoly looks at spelling reform, specifically at "sk" and "sc".
Posted on August 19, 2009
Anatoly Liberman explains the etymology of compound words, notably, blackguard.
Posted on August 12, 2009
Anatoly Liberman's gleanings.
Posted on September 2, 2009
Posted on August 26, 2009
Anatoly looks at oof and
Posted on September 9, 2009
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "chestnut."
Posted on September 16, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discovers connections between the origins of the words cobbler and clobber.
Posted on September 23, 2009
Anatoly Liberman's monthly gleanings.
Posted on September 30, 2009
Anatoly Liberman examines the history behind the words ocean and sea.
Posted on October 7, 2009
Anatoly Liberman responds to readers' questions and comments.
Posted on October 28, 2009
Anatoly Liberman examines meaning of the word Kike.
Posted on October 14, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of words with silent letters.
Posted on October 21, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymologies of "good" and "god" and demonstrates the two words are not related.
Posted on November 4, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of "dandy."
Posted on November 11, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of Whitsunday.
Posted on November 18, 2009
Anatoly Liberman responds to readers' questions and comments.
Posted on November 25, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of the word "rare."
Posted on December 2, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of "wayzgoose."
Posted on December 9, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of "wedlock."
Posted on December 16, 2009
Anatoly Liberman looks at usage and spelling.
Posted on December 23, 2009
Anatoly Liberman's monthly gleanings.
Posted on December 30, 2009
Anatoly Liberman's weekly post.
Posted on January 6, 2010
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "dross".
Posted on January 13, 2010
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "dregs".
Posted on January 20, 2010
Anatoly answers questions.
Posted on January 27, 2010
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "trash".
Posted on February 3, 2010
Anatoly Liberman examines the origins and meanings of the word "pun."
Posted on February 10, 2010
Anatoly Liberman discusses the origins of the word "squeamish."
Posted on February 17, 2010
Anatoly Liberman ponders what he learned this month, "especially" the "buzzword" "neologist."
Posted on February 24, 2010
Anatoly Liberman discusses the word "culprit" as the first part of his Unpleasant People series.
Posted on March 3, 2010
In this post, the second part in his Unpleasant People series, Anatoly Liberman considers the word "Scoundrel."
Posted on March 10, 2010
For the third part of his Unpleasant People series, Anatoly Liberman discusses the recent origins of the word swindler.
Posted on March 17, 2010
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "humbug".
Posted on March 24, 2010
Anatoly Liberman answers questions.
Posted on March 31, 2010
Anatoly Liberman looks at the words "dodge" and "kitsch".
Posted on April 7, 2010
Anatoly Liberman's weekly column.
Posted on April 14, 2010
The number of people in the English speaking world who distinguish in pronunciation between witch and which, wine and whine, wen and when is relatively small, and those who make this distinction do not say w-hitch, w-hine, and w-hen, but rather hwitch, hwine, and hwen. What follows is a breathtaking story of the hw-sound and the wh-spelling.
Posted on April 21, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman Last week I discussed the origin of the word cushion. Our correspondent wonders whether we are perhaps talking about bedrolls here. Judging by medieval miniatures from the East, old cushions were like those known to us, but the broad scope of referents, with the same word serving as the name of a cushion, bedcover, and mattress, does pose the question of the original object's form and uses. The reconstructed sense 'bundle'
Posted on September 15, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman There is something righteous about the right hand: it is supposed to point in the right direction and do everything right. In older Indo-European, even a special word existed for 'right hand,' as evidenced by Greek dexios (stress on the last syllable), Latin dexter, and others. A strong association connects the right hand with the south and the left hand with the north. Someone standing with his face turned to the rising sun (for example, while praying), will have his right hand stretched to the south and his left hand to the north. Old Irish tuath meant both 'north' and 'left' (when facing east). This case is not unique.
Posted on September 22, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman Is Standard English pronunciation a viable concept? I think it is, even if only to a point. People's accents differ, but some expectation of a more or less leveled pronunciation (that is, of the opposite of a broad dialect) in great public figures and media personalities probably exists. Jimmy Carter seems to have made an effort to sound less Georgian after he became President. If I am not mistaken, John Kennedy tried to suppress some of the most noticeable features of his Bostonian accent. But perhaps those changes happened under the influence of the new environment. In some countries, the idea of 'Standard' has a stronger grip
Posted on September 29, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman The most universal law of etymology is that we cannot explain the origin of a word unless we have a reasonably good idea of what the thing designated by the word means. For quite some time people pointed to India as the land in which rum was first consumed and did not realize that in other European languages rum was a borrowing from English. The misleading French spelling rhum suggested a connection with Greek rheum 'stream, flow' (as in rheumatism). According to other old conjectures, rum is derived from aroma or saccharum. India led researchers to Sanskrit roma 'water' as the word's etymon, and this is what many otherwise solid 19th-century dictionaries said. Webster gave the vague, even meaningless reference 'American,' but on the whole, the choice appeared to be between East and West Indies. Skeat, in the first edition of his d
Posted on October 6, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman Why indeed? But despite our financial woes, I am interested in the origin of the idiom, not in exorbitant prices. On the face of it (and the nose cannot be separated from the face), the idiom pay through the nose makes no sense. Current since the second half of the 17th century and probably transparent to the contemporaries, it later joined such puzzling phrases as kick the bucket and bees' knees. Idioms are harder to trace to their 'roots' than words. Etymology, though not an exact science, is governed by certain regularities (sound correspondences, patterns of semantic change, and so forth), but a search for the origin of idioms rarely needs the expertise of historical linguists. They will offer good
Posted on October 13, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman In 1984, old newspapers were regularly rewritten, to conform to the political demands of the day. With the Internet, the past is easy to alter. In a recent post, I mentioned C. Sweet, the man who discovered the origin of the word pedigree, and added (most imprudently) that I know nothing about this person and that he was no relative of the famous Henry Sweet. Stephen Goranson pointed out right away that in Skeat's article devoted to the subject, C. was expanded to Charles and that Charles Sweet was Henry's brother. I have the article in my office, which means I, too, at one time read it and knew who C. Sweet was. Grieved and
Posted on October 27, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman It seems reasonable that brisket should in some way be related to breast: after all, brisket is the breast of an animal. But the path leading from one word to the other is neither straight nor narrow. Most probably, it does not even exist. In what follows I am greatly indebted to the Swedish scholar Bertil Sandahl, who published an article on brisket and its cognates in 1964. The Oxford English Dictionary has no citations of brisket prior to 1450, but Sandahl discovered bresket in a document written in 1328-1329, and if his interpretation is correct, the date should be pushed back quite considerably. Before 1535, the favored (possibly, the only) form in English was bruchet(te).
Posted on October 20, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman Old codger is a phrase most speakers of American English still understand (in British English it has much greater currency), but cadger is either obsolete or dead. Yet the two words are often discussed in concert. A cadger was a traveling vendor, whose duties may have differed from that of a hawker, a peddler (the British spelling is pedlar), or a badger, but all those people were street dealers of sorts. The OED defines cadger so: 'a carrier; esp. a species of itinerant dealer who travels with a horse and cart (or formerly with a pack-horse), collecting butter, eggs, poultry, etc., from remote country farms for disposal in the town, and at the same time supplying the rural districts with small wares from the shops.' This meaning was recorded as early as the middle of the 15th century. Derogatory senses like 'a person prone to mooching' surfaced in books much later. Also late is the verb
Posted on November 3, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman Last week I wrote that one day I would reproduce some memorable statements from Skeat's letters to the editors. This day has arrived. I have several cartons full of paper clippings, the fruit of the loom that has been whirring incessantly for more than twenty years: hundreds of short and long articles about lexicographers, with Skeat occupying a place of honor. A self-educated man in everything that concerned the history of Germanic, he became the greatest expert in Old and Middle English and an incomparable etymologist. In England, only Murray, the editor of the OED, and Henry Sweet were his equals, and in Germany, only Eduard Sievers. Joseph Wright, another autodidact
Posted on November 17, 2010
This is an old chestnut. How did 'Raining Cats and Dogs' come into being, and stay, in the language? The possibilities are few. A foreign phrase is occasionally repeated verbatim or nearly so, and turns into gibberish. It is possible that the first 'cats and dogs' were not even animal names.
Posted on March 21, 2007
English is a language of limitless opportunities. Strange things happen in it. Some words are spelled alike but pronounced differently: 'bow' (the bow of a ship) and 'bow' (bow and arrows); 'row' (she kicked up a row) and 'row' (the front row); 'permit' (the verb) and 'permit' (the noun).
Posted on January 24, 2007
This is my 500th post for 'The Oxford Etymologist,' nine and a half years after this blog started in March 2006, and I decided to celebrate this event by writing something light and entertaining. Enough wrestling with words like bad, good, and god! Anyone can afford a week's break. So today I'll discuss an idiom that sounds trivial only because it is so familiar. Familiarity breeds not only contempt but also indifference.
Posted on August 26, 2015
The question then is: 'What does the root gu- signify?' The procedure consists in finding some word in Germanic and ideally outside Germanic in which gu- or g-, followed by another vowel and alternating with u means something compatible with the idea of 'god.' Here, however, is the rub. Old Germanic gu°- certainly existed, but we don't know what it meant when it was coined centuries before it surfaced in texts.
Posted on August 19, 2015
From what was said last week it follows that pagans did not need a highly charged word for 'god,' let alone 'God.' They recognized a hierarchy of supernatural beings and the division of labor in that 'heavenly' crowd. Some disturbed our dreams, some bereaved us of reason, and still others inflicted diseases and in general worked evil and mischief.
Posted on August 12, 2015
While dealing with the etymology of the adjective bad, I realized that an essay on good would be vapid. The picture in Germanic and Slavic with respect to good is trivial, while the word's ties outside those two groups are bound to remain unclear. Especially troublesome is Greek agath³s 'good,' from which we have the given name Agatha.
Posted on August 5, 2015
During the month of July I have received some questions, comments, and queries about things new to me. Thus, I know next to nothing about Latvian (my Indo-European interests more often make me turn to Lithuanian) and feel insecure when it comes to Romance etymology. The questions made me examine the areas that would under normal circumstances have not attracted my attention, and I am pleased.
Posted on July 29, 2015
Hermaphrodites are born rarely, and it is far from clear why their mythology achieved such prominence in Antiquity. Reference to cross-dressing during certain marriage rites does not go far, but the cult of Hermaphroditus is a fact, and Ovid's tale of the union in one body of the son of Hermes and Aphrodite is well-known.
Posted on June 11, 2008
For a long time the etymology of the word bad has been at the center of my attention (four essays bear ample witness to this fact), and the latest post ended with a cautious reference to the idea that Middle Engl. bad ~ badde, a noun that occurred only once in 1350 and whose meaning seems to have been 'cat,' is, from an etymological point of view, identical with the adjective bad.
Posted on July 22, 2015
The authority of the OED is so great that, once it has spoken, few people are eager to contest or even modify its verdict. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology adds perhaps (not probably!) to Murray's etymology, cites both b¦ddel and b¦dling (it gives length to ¦ in both words) and adds that there have been other, more dubious conjectures.
Posted on July 15, 2015
Quite often the first solid etymology of an English word comes from Skeat, but this is not the case with the adjective bad. In the first edition of his dictionary (1882), he could offer, with much hesitation, two Celtic cognates of bad, one of them being Irish Gaelic baodh 'vain, giddy, foolish, simple.' Much later, Charles Mackay, who believed that Irish Gaelic was the source of most English words, mentioned beud 'mischief, hurt' as the etymon of bad.
Posted on July 8, 2015
Several years ago, I wrote a post on the origin of the word frigate. The reason I embarked on that venture was explained in the post: I had run into what seemed to me a promising conjecture by Vittorio Pisani. As far as I could judge, his note had attracted no attention, and I felt it my duty to rectify the injustice.
Posted on July 1, 2015
The origin of plant names is one of the most interesting areas of etymology. I have dealt with henbane, hemlock, horehound, and mistletoe and know how thorny the gentlest flowers may be for a language historian. It is certain that horehound has nothing to do with hounds, and I hope to have shown that henbane did not get its name because it is particularly dangerous to hens (which hardly ever peck at it, and even if they did, why should they have been chosen as the poisonous plant's preferred victims?).
Posted on November 10, 2010
Our earliest etymologists did not realize how much trouble the adjective bad would give later researchers. The first of them'John Minsheu (1617) and Stephen Skinner (1671)'cited Dutch quaad 'bad, evil; ill.' (Before going on, I should note that today quad is spelled kwaad, which shows that a civilized nation using the Roman alphabet can do very well without the letter q.)
Posted on June 24, 2015
In the near future I'll have more than enough to say about bad, an adjective whose history is dismally obscure, but once again, and for the umpteenth time, we have to ask ourselves why there are words of undiscovered and seemingly undiscoverable origin. Historical linguists try to reconstruct ancient roots.
Posted on June 17, 2015
As a rule, I try not to deal with the words whose origin is supposedly known (that is, agreed upon). One can look them up in any dictionary or on the Internet, and no one needs a blog for disseminating trivialities. The etymology of bed has reached the stage of an uneasy consensus, but recently the accepted explanation has again been called into question.
Posted on June 10, 2015
Most of what I had to say on bug can be found in my book Word Origins and in my introductory etymological dictionary. But such a mass of curious notes, newspaper clippings, and personal letters fester in my folders that it is a pity to leave them there unused until the crack of etymological doom. So I decided to offer the public a small plate of leftovers in the hope of providing a dessert after the stodgy essays on bars, barrels, barracks, and barricades, to say nothing about cry barley.
Posted on June 3, 2015
In the United States everything is planned very long in advance, while in Europe one can sometimes read about a conference that will be held a mere three months later. By that time all the travel money available to an American academic will have been spent a millennium ago. In the United States, we have visions rather than short-range plans.
Posted on May 27, 2015
Last week, I wrote about the idiom to cry barley, used by children in Scotland and in the northern counties of England, but I was interested in the word barley 'peace, truce' rather than the phrase. Today I am returning to the north, and it is the saying the bishop has put (or set) his foot in it that will be at the center of our attention.
Posted on May 20, 2015
Girls, in some parts of England and the United States, say, or rather chant, while bouncing a ball: 'One, two, three, alairy, four five, six, alairy,' and so on. According to an 'eyewitness report,' they say so, while bouncing a ball on the ground, catching it with one hand, keeping the score, and accompanying each alairy with a circular swing of the leg, so as to describe a loop around but not obstruct the rising ball.
Posted on April 4, 2007
To finish the bar(r)-series, I deviated from my usual practice and chose a word about which there is at present relatively little controversy. However, all is not clear, and two theories about the origin of barricade still compete. According to one, the story begins with words like Italian barra and French barre 'bar' (barricades bar access to certain places), while, according to the other, the first barricades were constructed of barrels filled with earth, stones, and the like, so that the starting point should be French barrique or Spanish barrica.
Posted on May 13, 2015
The post two weeks ago was devoted to the origin and history of bar. In English, all words with the root bar- ~ barr- are from French. They usually have related forms in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, but their source in the Romance-speaking world remains a matter of unending debate.
Posted on May 6, 2015
Last month was a disaster: I confused the Wednesdays and then wrote 2014 for 2015. A student of the Middle Ages, I often forget in which millennium I live, so plus or minus one year does not really matter. We say: 'The migration happened six or seven thousand years ago.' This is the degree of precision to which I am accustomed.
Posted on April 29, 2015
A priest can be defrocked, and a lawyer disbarred. I wonder what happens to a historical linguist who cannot find an answer in his books. Is such an individual outsourced? A listener from Quebec (Qu©bec) asked me about the origin of the noun bar. He wrote: ''¦we still say in French barrer la porte as they still do (though less and less) on the Atlantic side of France.
Posted on April 22, 2015
For some reason, interest in the etymology of copasetic never abates. This adjective, a synonym of the equally infantile hunky-dory, is hardly ever used today unless the speaker wants to sound funny, but I cannot remember a single talk on words without someone's asking me about its derivation and thinking that the question is of a most imaginative kind.
Posted on July 5, 2006
I have always been interested in linguistic heavy metal. In the literature on English phrases, two 'metal idioms' have attracted special attention: dead as a doornail and to get (come) down to brass tacks. The latter phrase has fared especially well; in recent years, several unexpected early examples of it have been unearthed.
Posted on April 15, 2015
Many thanks for comments, questions, and reprimands, even though sometimes I am accused of the sins I have not committed. If I were a journalist, I would say that my remarks tend to be taken out of context. Of course I know what precession of the equinoxes is and italicized e, to point out that it is indeed the right form (precession, not procession).
Posted on April 8, 2015
One should not be too enthusiastic about anything. Wholly overwhelmed by the thought that winter is behind, I forgot to consult the calendar and did not realize that 25 March was the last Wednesday of the month and celebrated the spring equinox instead of providing our readership with the traditional monthly gleanings.
Posted on April 1, 2015
This is the week of the spring equinox, but I decided not to wait until June and write a post about the solstice. For a change, bonfire is 'a word of (fairly well-)known origin,' so don't expect revelations. However, it is always instructive to observe people beating about the bush long after it has burned up. The image of beating about the bush suggested the title of this post.
Posted on March 25, 2015
If you know the saying ossing comes to bossing, rest assured that it does not mean the same as ossing is bossing. But you may never have heard either of those phrases, though the verb oss 'to try, dare' is one of the favorites of English dialectology.
Posted on March 18, 2015
I was twelve years old when I first read Jack London's novel Martin Eden, and it remained my favorite book for years. Few people I know have heard about it, which is a pity. Jack London was a superb story teller, but his novels belong to what is called politely the history of literature'all or almost all except Martin Eden.
Posted on March 11, 2015
I received a question whether I was going to write about the word key in the series on our habitat. I didn't have such an intention, but, since someone is interested in this matter, I'll gladly change my plans and satisfy the curiosity of our friend.
Posted on March 4, 2015
One month is unlike another. Sometimes I receive many letters and many comments; then lean months may follow. February produced a good harvest ('February fill the dyke,' as they used to say), and I can glean a bagful. Perhaps I should choose a special title for my gleanings: 'I Am All Ears' or something like it.
Posted on February 25, 2015
The previous post dealt with the uneasy history of the word threshold, and throughout the text I wrote thresh~ thrash, as though those were two variants of the same word. Yet today they are two different words, and their relation poses a few questions. Old English had the strong verb ¾erscan (¾ = th in Engl. thresh), with cognates everywhere in Germanic.
Posted on February 18, 2015
One does not have to be a specialist to suggest that threshold is either a disguised compound or that it contains a root and some impenetrable suffix. Disguised compounds are words like bridal (originally, bride + ale but now not even a noun as in the past, because -al was taken for the suffix of an adjective) or barn, a blend of the words for 'barley,' of which only b is extant, and Old Engl. earn 'house.'
Posted on February 11, 2015
When it comes to origins, we know as little about the word home as about the word house. Distinguished American linguist Winfred P. Lehmann noted that no Indo-European terminology for even small settlements has been preserved in Germanic. And here an important distinction should be made.
Posted on February 4, 2015
I am pleased to report that A Happy New Year is moving along its warlike path at the predicted speed of one day in twenty-four hours and that it is already the end of January. Spring will come before you can say Jack Robinson, as Kipling's bicolored python would put it, and soon there will be snowdrops to glean. Etymology and spelling are the topics today. Some other questions will be answered in February.
Posted on January 28, 2015
It is astounding how mysterious the origin of such simple words as man, wife, son, god, house, and others like them is. They are old, even ancient, and over time their form has changed very little, sometimes not at all, so that we do not have to break through a thicket of sound laws to restitute their initial form.
Posted on January 21, 2015
Probably no other ethnic group has been vilified with so much linguistic ingenuity as the Jews. For the moment I will leave out of account Kike and Smouch and say what little I can about Sheeny, a word first recorded in English in 1824 (so the OED).
Posted on July 29, 2009
A dwelling is, obviously, a place in which someone dwells. Although the word is transparent , the verb dwell is not. Only its derivation poses no problems. Some verbs belong to the so-called causative group. They mean 'to make do or to cause to do.'
Posted on January 14, 2015
Although I am still in 2014, as the title of this post indicates, in the early January one succumbs to the desire to say something memorable that will set the tone to the rest of the year. So I would like to remind everybody that in 1915 James Murray, the first and greatest editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) or New English Dictionary (NED), died.
Posted on January 7, 2015
My post on laughing attracted two comments: an alleged counterexample from an Icelandic saga and a veritable flood of vituperation. The second writer was so disgusted that he could not even make himself finish reading the essay.
Posted on December 31, 2014
Posted on December 24, 2014
One of the dialogues in Jonathan Swift's work titled A complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation (1738) runs as follows
Posted on December 17, 2014
I have noticed that many of my acquaintances misuse the phrases a dry sense of humor and a quiet sense of humor. Some people can tell a joke with a straight face, but, as a rule, they do it intentionally; their performance is studied and has little to do with 'dryness.'
Posted on December 10, 2014
Two weeks ago, I discussed the troubled origin of the word aye 'yes,' as in the ayes have it, and promised to return to this word in connection with some other formulas of affirmation. The main of them is yes.
Posted on December 3, 2014
As always, I want to thank those who have commented on the posts and written me letters bypassing the 'official channels' (though nothing can be more in- or unofficial than this blog; I distinguish between inofficial and unofficial, to the disapproval of the spellchecker and some editors). I only wish there were more comments and letters.
Posted on November 26, 2014
The ayes may have it, but we, poor naysayers, remain in ignorance about the derivation of ay(e) 'yes.' I hope to discuss the various forms of assent in December, and we'll see that that the origin of some synonyms of ay(e) is also enigmatic.
Posted on November 19, 2014
From time to time I receive letters encouraging me to discuss not only words but also idioms. I would be happy to do so if I were better equipped. The origin of proverbial sayings (unless they go back to so-called familiar quotations) and idioms is usually lost beyond recovery.
Posted on November 12, 2014
As I mentioned last time, one of our correspondents asked me whether anything is known about this idiom. My database has very little on brown study, but I may refer to an editorial comment from the indispensable Notes and Queries (1862, 3rd Series/I, p. 190). The writer brings brown study in connection with French humeur brune, literally 'brown humor, or disposition,' said about a somber or melancholy temperament.
Posted on November 5, 2014
It so happened that at the end of this past summer I was out of town and responded to the questions and comments that had accumulated in August and September in two posts. We have the adjectives biennial and biannual but no such Latinized luxury for the word month.
Posted on October 29, 2014
If you have read the previous parts of this 'study,' you may remember that brown is defined as a color between orange and black, but lexicographical sources often abstain from definitions and refer to the color of familiar objects. They say that brown is the color of mud, dirt, coffee, chocolate, hazel, or chestnut.
Posted on October 22, 2014
Color names have been investigated in almost overwhelming detail, but it is not the etymology but usage that tends to 'throw us off the scent.'
Posted on October 15, 2014
Dangerous derivations and chance coincidences
Posted on October 8, 2014
I was out of town at the end of this past August and have a sizable backlog of unanswered questions and comments. It may take me two or even three weeks to catch up with them. I am not complaining: on the contrary, I am delighted to have correspondents from Sweden to Taiwan.
Posted on October 1, 2014
Color words are among the most mysterious ones to a historian of language and culture, and brown is perhaps the most mysterious of them all. At first blush (and we will see that it can have a brownish tint), everything is clear. Brown is produced by mixing red, yellow, and black.
Posted on September 24, 2014
Like every other custom in life, kissing has been studied from the historical, cultural, anthropological, and linguistic point of view. Most people care more for the thing than for the word, but mine is an etymological blog.
Posted on September 17, 2014
Yes, this is Post 450. The present blog was launched on March 1, 2006 and has appeared every Wednesday ever since, rain or shine. Another short year, and the jubilant world will celebrate the great number 500.
Posted on September 10, 2014
The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (ODEE) says about the verb wrap (with the abbreviations expanded): ''¦of unknown origin, similar in form and sense are North Frisian wrappe stop up, Danish dialectal vrappe stuff; and cf. Middle Engl. bewrappe, beside wlappe (XIV), LAP3.'
Posted on September 3, 2014
It occurred to me to write a short essay about the word verve by chance. As a general rule, I try to stick to my last and stay away from Romance etymology, even though the logic of research occasionally makes me meddle with it.
Posted on August 27, 2014
As can be guessed from the above title, my today's subject is the derivation of the word road. The history of road has some interest not only because a word that looks so easy for analysis has an involved and, one can say, unsolved etymology.
Posted on August 20, 2014
Once John Cowan suggested that I touch on the murky history of the noun qualm and try to shed light on it. To the extent that I can trust my database, this word, which is, naturally, featured in all dictionaries, hardly ever appears in the special scholarly literature.
Posted on August 13, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman On 20 November 2013, I discussed the verbs astonish, astound, and stun. Whatever the value of that discussion, it had a truly wonderful picture of a stunned cat and an ironic comment by Peter Maher on the use of the word stunning.
Posted on August 6, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Since I'll be out of town at the end of July, I was not sure I would be able to write these 'gleanings.' But the questions have been many, and I could answer some of them ahead of time.
Posted on July 30, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman To some people which and witch are homophones. Others, who differentiate between w and wh, distinguish them. This rather insignificant phenomenon is tackled in all books on English pronunciation and occasionally rises to the surface of 'political discourse.'
Posted on July 23, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman A few weeks ago, I talked about euphemisms on Minnesota Public Radio. The comments were many and varied. Not unexpectedly, some callers also mentioned clich©s, and I realized once again that in my resentment of unbridled political correctness, the overuse of buzzwords, and the ineradicable habit to suppress the truth by putting on it a coating of sugary euphemisms I am not alone.
Posted on July 16, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman The terrible word slough Some time ago, in my discussion of English spelling, I touched on the group ough, this enfant terrible of our orthography; slough figured prominently in it.
Posted on July 9, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Baron, mark, and concise. I am always glad to hear from our readers. This time I noted with pleasure that both comments on baron (see them posted where they belong) were not new to me.
Posted on July 2, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman The names of titles have curious sources and often become international words. The history of some of them graces student textbooks. Marshal, for instance, is an English borrowing from French, though it came to French from Germanic, where it meant 'mare servant' (skalkaz 'servant, slave'). Constable meant 'the count of the stable.'
Posted on June 25, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman I will begin with a short summary of the previous post. In English texts, the noun baron surfaced in 1200, which means that it became current not much earlier than the end of the twelfth century. It has been traced to Semitic (a fanciful derivation), Celtic, Latin (a variety of proposals), and Germanic. The Old English words beorn 'man; fighter, warrior' and bearn 'child; bairn' are unlikely sources of baron.
Posted on June 18, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Once again we are torn between Rome, the Romance-speaking world, and England. The word baron appeared in English texts in 1200, and it probably became current shortly before that time, for such an important military title would hardly have escaped written tradition for too long.
Posted on June 11, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Those who will look up the etymology of roil and rile will have to choose between two answers: 'from Old French' or 'of uncertain origin.' Judging by my rather extensive and constantly growing database, roil and rile have attracted little attention
Posted on June 4, 2014
Anatoly Liberman responds to this month's letters. He discusses the hotly contested issue of spelling reform, historical semantics, why words change meaning, the modern usage of the words 'unique' and 'decimate', 'agreement the American way', and explains how university administrators write.
Posted on May 28, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman There is an almost incomprehensible number of English words for money and various coins. Some of them, like shilling, are very old. We know (or we think that we know) where they came from. Other words (the majority) surfaced as slang, and our record of them seldom goes beyond the early modern period.
Posted on May 21, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman If I find enough material, I may tell several stories about how after multiple failures the ultimate origin of a common English word has been found to (almost) everybody's satisfaction. The opening chapter in my prospective Decameron will deal with pedigree, which surfaced in English texts in the early fifteenth century.
Posted on May 14, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman I think some sort of closure is needed after we have heard the arguments for and against spelling reform by two outstanding scholars. Should we do something about English spelling, and, if the answer is yes, what should we do? Conversely, if no, why no?Â
Posted on May 7, 2014
Anatoly Liberman's etymological thoughts and correspondences for April; regarding 'old languages and complexity', the origins of the word 'brothel', why 'selfie' is not such a new term after all, 'to whom it may concern', unintentional wolf puns, and the amusing revenges of time.
Posted on April 30, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Henry Bradley, while writing his paper (see the previous post), must have looked upon Skeat as his main opponent. This becomes immediately clear from the details. For instance, Skeat lamented the use of the letter c in scissors and Bradley defended it.
Posted on April 23, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Last week I wrote about Henry Bradley's role in making the OED what it is: a mine of information, an incomparable authority on the English language, and a source of inspiration to lexicographers all over the world
Posted on April 16, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Those who look up the origin of a word in a dictionary are rarely interested in the sources of the information they find there. Nor do they realize how debatable most of this information is. Yet serious research stands behind even the controversial statements in a modern etymological dictionary.
Posted on April 12, 2006
By Anatoly Liberman At one time I intended to write a series of posts about the scholars who made significant contributions to English etymology but whose names are little known to the general public. Not that any etymologists can vie with politicians, actors, or athletes when it comes to funding and fame, but some of them wrote books and dictionaries and for a while stayed in the public eye.
Posted on April 9, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Two or three times a year I receive questions about what the profession of an etymologist entails. I usually answer them briefly in my 'gleanings,' and once I even devoted a post to this subject. Perhaps it won't hurt if I return to the often-asked question again.
Posted on April 2, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Beguines. The origin of Beguine is bound to remain unknown, if 'unknown' means that no answer exists that makes further discussion useless. No doubt, the color gray could give rise to the name. If it were not so, this etymology would not have been offered and defended by many scholars.
Posted on March 26, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Apart from realizing that each of the three words in question (beggar, bugger, and bigot) needs an individual etymology, we should keep in mind that all of them arose as terms of abuse and sound somewhat alike. The Beguines,Beghards, and Albigensians have already been dealt with.
Posted on March 19, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Unlike so many words featured in this blog, bugger has a well-ascertained origin, but it belongs with the rest of this series because it sheds light on its companions beggar and bigot.
Posted on March 12, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman The final sentence in the essay posted in January was not a statement but a question. We had looked at several hypotheses on the origin of the verb beg and found that none of them carried conviction. It also remained unclear whether beg was a back formation on beggar or whether beggar arose as a noun agent from the verb.
Posted on March 5, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman I am impressed. Not long ago I asked two riddles. Who coined the phrase indefatigable assiduity and who said that inspiration does not come to the indolent? The phrase with assiduity turns up on the Internet at once (it occurs in the first chapter of The Pickwick Papers), but John Cowan pointed out that Dickens may have used (parodied?) a popular clich© of that time.
Posted on February 26, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Bigot will wait until the end of this miniseries, because some time ago (26 October 2011) I published a special post on this word and now have only a short remark to add to it. But beggars and buggers cry out for recognition and should not be denied it.
Posted on February 19, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman What does it take to be a successful etymologist? Obviously, an ability to put two and two together. But all scholarly work, every deduction needs this ability. The more words and forms one knows, the greater is the chance that the result will be reasonably convincing.
Posted on February 12, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Respectability in etymology is determined by age: the older, the better. The verb to bicker has been known since the fourteenth century, while the verb to bitch 'complain; spoil' is a nineteenth-century invention. On the other hand, the noun bitch occurred already in Old English, so that it is not quite clear which of the two words'bitch or bicker'should be awarded the first place.
Posted on February 5, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Reference works: I received three questions. (1) Our correspondent would like to buy a good etymological dictionary of English. Which one can be recommended?
Posted on January 29, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman The world has solved its gravest problems, but a few minor ones have remained. Judging by the Internet, the spelling of whoa is among them. Some people clamor for woah, which is a perversion of whoa and hence 'cool'; only bores, it appears, don't understand it. I understand the rebels but wonder.
Posted on January 22, 2014
Why brothel? We will begin with the customer. Bro¾el surfaced in Middle English and meant 'a worthless person; prostitute.' The letters -el are a dead or, to use a technical term, unproductive suffix, but even in the days of its efflorescence it was rarely used to form so-called nomina agentis (agent nouns), the way -er is today added to read and work and yields reader and worker.
Posted on January 15, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman At the end of the nineteenth century, while working on the issue of the OED (then known as NED: New English Dictionary) that was to feature the word gray, James A. H. Murray sent letters to various people, asking their opinion about the differences between the variants gray and grey.
Posted on January 8, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman The shades of gray multiply (as promised in December 2013). Now that we know that greyhounds are not gray, we have to look at our other character, grimalkin. What bothers me is not so much the cat's color or the witch's disposition as the unsatisfactory state of etymology.
Posted on January 1, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman At the end of December people are overwhelmed by calendar feelings: one more year has merged with history, and its successor promises new joys and woes (but thinking of future woes is bad taste). I usually keep multifarious scraps and cuttings to dispose of on the last Wednesday of the year: insoluble questions come and never go away.
Posted on December 25, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I am returning to greyhound, a word whose origin has been discussed with rare dedication and relatively meager results. The component -hound is the generic word for 'dog' everywhere in Germanic, except English. I am aware of only one attempt to identify -hound with hunter (so in in the 1688 dictionary by Rºnolfur J³nsson).
Posted on December 18, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman One day the great god Thor was traveling and found himself in a remote kingdom whose ruler humiliated him and his companions in every possible way. Much to his surprise and irritation, Thor discovered that he was a poor drinker, a poor wrestler, and too weak to pick up a cat from the floor. To be sure, his host, a cunning illusionist, tricked him.
Posted on December 11, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Someone who today seeks reliable information on the origin of English words will, naturally, consult some recent dictionary. However, not too rarely this information is insufficient and even wrong (rejected opinions may be presented there as reliable).
Posted on December 4, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Brave and its aftermath. During the month of November, the main event in the uneventful life of the Oxford Etymologist (in this roundabout way I refer to myself) has been the controversy around the origin of bravus, the etymon of bravo ~ brave.
Posted on November 27, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman There are many ways to be surprised (confounded, dumbfounded, stupefied, flummoxed, and even flabbergasted). While recently discussing this topic, I half-promised to return to it, and, although the origin of astonish ~ astound ~ stun is less exciting than that of amaze, it is perhaps worthy of a brief note.
Posted on November 20, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman One of the minor questions addressed in my latest 'gleanings' concerned the origin of the adjective brave. My comment brought forward a counter-comment by Peter Maher and resulted in an exchange of many letters between us, so that this post owes its appearance to him. Today I am returning to brave, a better-informed and more cautious man.
Posted on November 13, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Words, as I have noted more than once, live up to their sense. For instance, in searching for the origin of amaze, one encounters numerous truly amazing reefs. This is the story. Old English had the verb amasian 'confuse, surprise.'
Posted on November 6, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Touch and go. I asked our correspondents whether anyone could confirm or disprove the nautical origin of the idiom touch and go. This is the answer I received from Mr. Jonathan H. Saunders: 'As a Merchant Mariner I have used and heard this term for over thirty years.
Posted on October 30, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman It is hard to hide something (anything) from Stephen Goranson (see his comment to Part 1), who will find a needle in a haystack, and The Canterville Ghost is a rather visible needle. Yet Oscar Wilde is no longer as popular as one could wish for.
Posted on October 23, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Don't hold your breath: all three words, especially the second and the third, came in from the cold and will return there. Nor do we know whether anything connects them. Deuce is by far the oldest of the three. Our attestations of it go back to the middle of the seventeenth century.
Posted on October 16, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Every word journalist is on the lookout for interesting pieces of information about language. H. W. Fowler, the author of the great and incomparable book Modern English Usage, confessed that his main reading was newspapers. Naturally: where else could he find so much garbled English?
Posted on October 9, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman As promised, I am returning to the English verb brag and the Old Scandinavian god Bragi (see the previous post). If compared with boast, brag would seem to be more suggestive of bluster and hot air. Yet both may have been specimens of Middle English slang or expressive formations.
Posted on October 2, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I begin almost every set of gleanings with abject apologies. To err is human. So it is not the mistakes I have made in the past and will make in the future that irritate me but the avoidable and therefore unforgivable slips.
Posted on September 25, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman The subject promised by today's title has been simmering on my back burner for a long time, but now that the essay on simpleton is out, I am ripe for tackling it.
Posted on September 18, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Simpleton is an irritating word. At first sight, its origin contains no secrets: simple + ton. And that may be all there is to it despite the obscurity of -ton. We find this explanation in the OED and in the dictionaries dependent on it.
Posted on September 11, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman My apologies for the mistakes, and thanks to those who found them. With regard to the word painter 'rope,' I was misled by some dictionary, and while writing about gobble-de-gook, I was thinking of galumph. Whatever harm has been done, it has now been undone and even erased.
Posted on September 4, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I have received many comments on the posts published in August and many questions. Rather than making these gleanings inordinately long, I have broken them into two parts. Today I'll begin by asking rather than answering questions, because to some queries I am unable to give quotable (or any) answers.
Posted on August 28, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman As always, I am grateful to our correspondents for their questions, suggestions, and corrections. Occasionally I do not respond to their queries because I have nothing to say and keep trying to find a quotable answer.
Posted on July 31, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I have been meaning to tell the story of askance for quite some time'as a parable or an exemplum. Popular books and blogs prefer to deal with so-called interesting words. Dude, snob, and haberdasher always arouse a measure of enthusiasm, along with the whole nine yards, dated and recent slang, and the outwardly undecipherable family names.
Posted on August 21, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman The phrase put the kibosh on surfaced in texts in the early thirties of the nineteenth century. For a long time etymologists have been trying to discover what kibosh means and where it came from. Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Gaelic Irish, and French have been explored for that purpose.
Posted on August 14, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman This is a story of the names of two letters. Appreciate the fact that I did not call it 'A Tale of Two Letters.' No other phrase has been pawed over to such an extent as the title of Dickens's novel.
Posted on August 7, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman It is common knowledge that an average page of an English dictionary contains at least twice as many borrowed as native words, even though come, go, see, sit, stand, do, make, man, woman, in, on, and other similar heavy duty words go back to Old English.
Posted on July 24, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman 'Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been? I've been to London to look at the Queen,/ Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, what did you there?/ I frightened a little mouse under the chair.' Evidently, our power of observation depends on our background and current interests.
Posted on July 17, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman The names of musical instruments constitute one of the most intriguing chapters in the science and pseudoscience of etymology. Many such names travel from land to land, and we are surprised when a word with romantic overtones reveals a prosaic origin. For example, lute is from Arabic (al'ud: the definite article followed by a word for 'wood, timber').
Posted on July 10, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Contrary to some people's expectation, July has arrived, and it rains incessantly, that is, in the parts of the world not suffering from drought. I often feel guilty on account of my avoiding the burning questions of our time.
Posted on July 3, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman One cannot predict which posts will interest the public and which will leave them indifferent. I hoped that my 'revolutionary' hypothesis on the origin of Old Nick would result in a tidal wave (title wave, as some of my students write), but it did not produce as much as a ripple, whereas the fairly trivial essay on the letter y aroused a lively discussion.
Posted on June 26, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Petty devils are all around us. Products of so-called low mythology, they often have impenetrable names. (Higher mythology deals with gods, yet their names are often equally opaque!) Some such evil creatures have appeared, figuratively speaking, the day before yesterday, but that does not prevent them from hiding their origin with envious dexterity (after all, they are imps). A famous evader is gremlin.
Posted on June 19, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Although a German word, Pumpernickel (which in what follows will not be capitalized) seems to be sufficiently familiar to the English speaking world not to require a gloss. The origin of the bread (Westphalia, and there perhaps the town of Osnabr¼cken) has been ascertained, but the etymology of the name remains a puzzle'at least to some extent.
Posted on June 12, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman In our enlightened age, we are beginning to forget how thickly the world of our ancestors was populated by imps and devils. Shakespeare still felt at home among them, would have recognized Grimalkin, and, as noted in a recent post, knew the charm aroint thee, which scared away witches. Flibbertigibbet (a member of a sizable family in King Lear), the wily Rumpelstilzchen, and their kin have names that are sometimes hard to decipher, a fact of which Rumpelstilzchen was fully aware.
Posted on June 5, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Language controlled by ruling powers? Very much depends on whether the country has a language academy that decides what is correct and what is wrong. Even in the absence of such an organization, a committee consisting of respected scholars and politicians sometimes lays down the law. Spelling is a classic case of 'ruling the language.'
Posted on May 29, 2013
or, Shame and Guilt from an Etymological Point of View, With Some Observations on Sham and Scam Thrown in for Good Measure (Part 1: Shame)
Posted on September 3, 2008
By Anatoly Liberman As has often happened in the recent past, this essay is an answer to a letter, but I will not only address the question of our correspondent but also develop the topic and write about Old Nick, his crew, and the goblin. The question was about the origin of the words bogey and boggle. I have dealt with both in my dictionary and in passing probably in the blog.
Posted on May 22, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I could have spent a hundred years bemoaning English spelling, but since no one is paying attention, this would have been a wasted life. Not every language can boast of useless letters; fortunately, English is one of them. However, it is in good company, especially if viewed from a historical perspective. Such was Russian, which once overflowed with redundant letters.
Posted on May 15, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman It may not be too widely known how hard it is to discover the origin of even 'easy' words. Most people realize that the beginning of language is lost and that, although we can sometimes reconstruct an earlier stage of a word, we usually stop when it comes to explaining why a given combination of sounds is endowed with the meaning known to us.
Posted on May 8, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Some time ago I read Sidney P. Moss's 1984 book Charles Dickens' Quarrel with America. Those who remember Martin Cuzzlewit and the last chapter of American Notes must have a good idea of the 'quarrel.' However, this post is, naturally, not on the book or on Dickens's nice statement: 'I have to go to America'on my way to the Devil' (this statement is used as an epigraph to Moss's work).
Posted on May 1, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Thief again. One comment on thief referred to an apparently admissible Lithuanian cognate. It seems that if we were dealing with an Indo-European word of respectable antiquity, more than a single Baltic verb for 'cower' or 'seize' would have survived in this group. I also mentioned the possibility of borrowing, and another correspondent wondered from whom the Goths could learn such a word.
Posted on April 24, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman This post is an answer to a letter I received from our correspondent Jonathan Davis. Not too long ago, I mentioned the differences in the pronunciation of niche: in the speech of most Americans it rhymes with pitch, but the rhyme niche/leash can also be heard, and it seems to be prevalent in Britain. Mr. Davis is an Englishman living in Texas and, not unexpectedly, favors the vowel of ee and sh in niche, while those around him prefer short i and ch.
Posted on April 17, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Within a year, two recent articles on the origin of the word boy have come to my attention. This is great news. Keeping a talent of such value under a bushel and withholding it from the rest of the world would be unforgivable. Nowadays, if a philological journal does not come as a reward for the membership in a popular society, its circulation is extremely low.
Posted on April 10, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman The title of this post is meant to warn our readers that the origin of the word thief has never been discovered. Perhaps an apology is in order. I embarked on today's seemingly thankless topic after I received a question from Denmark about the possible ties between Danish to 'two' and tyv 'thief.'
Posted on April 3, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman This has been a good month for the 'gleanings': I have received many questions and many kind words through the blog and privately. My usual thanks to those who read and react.
Posted on March 27, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I am saying goodbye to the Harlem Shake. The miniseries began two weeks ago withdance, moved on to twerk and twerp, and now the turn of the verb shake has come round. Reference books say little about the origin of shake. They usually list a few cognates and produce the Germanic etymon skakan (both a's were short)
Posted on March 20, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I decided to throw a look at a few tw-words while writing my previous post on the origin of dance. In descriptions of grinding and the Harlem Shake, twerk occurs with great regularity. The verb means 'to move one's buttocks in a suggestive way.' It has not yet made its way into OED and perhaps never will (let us hope so), but its origin hardly poses a problem: twerk must be a blend of twist (or twitch) and work (or jerk).
Posted on March 13, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman American schools dance nonstop. A wild display of 'flailing arms and wriggling torsos,' known as the Harlem Shake, is the latest addition to our civilization. High school 'kids' writhe eel-like on the floor, chairs, and tables, fall, sometimes break arms and legs, and have fun, which is the unassailable backbone of our educational system. At some places, teachers and principals dance with the kids and thus double the amount of fun.
Posted on March 6, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman My usual thanks to those who have commented on the posts, written me letters privately or through OUP, and corrected the rare but irritating typos. I especially appreciate comments that deal with the languages remote from my sphere of interest: Arabic, Farsi, Romany, and so forth. But, even while dealing with the languages that are close to my area of expertise (for example, Sanskrit and Frisian), quite naturally, I feel less comfortable in them than in English, German, or Icelandic (my 'turf').
Posted on February 27, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Dozens of words have not been forgotten only because Shakespeare used them. Scotch (as in scotch the snake), bare bodkin, and dozens of others would have taken their quietus and slept peacefully in the majestic graveyard of the Oxford English Dictionary but for their appearance in Shakespeare's plays. Aroint would certainly have been unknown but for its appearance in Macbeth and King Lear.
Posted on February 20, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman The questions people ask about word origins usually concern slang, family names, and idioms. I cannot remember being ever asked about the etymology of house, fox, or sun. These are such common words that we take them for granted, and yet their history is often complicated and instructive. In this blog, I usually stay away from them, but I sometimes let my Indo-European sympathies run away with me. Today's subject is of this type.
Posted on February 13, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I am picking up where I left off a week ago. Mare and Mars. Can they be related? The chance is close to zero. Both words are of obscure origin, and attempts to explain an opaque word by referring it to an equally opaque one invariably come out wrong.
Posted on February 6, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Last time I was writing my monthly gleanings in anticipation of the New Year. January 1 came and went, but good memories of many things remain. I would like to begin this set with saying how pleased and touched I was by our correspondents' appreciation of my work, by their words of encouragement, and by their promise to go on reading the blog in the future. Writing weekly posts is a great pleasure.
Posted on January 30, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Primates have given Germanic language historians great trouble. In the most recent dictionary of German etymology (Kluge-Seebold), the entry Affe 'ape' is one of the most detailed. In the revised version of the OED, monkey is also discussed at a length, otherwise rare in this online edition. Despite the multitude of hypotheses, the sought-for solution is not in view.
Posted on January 23, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman One more drinking vessel, and I'll stop. Strangely, here we have another synonym for bumper, and it is again an old word of unknown origin. In English, goblet turned up in the fourteenth century, but its uninterrupted recorded history began about a hundred years later. Many names of vials, mugs, and beverages probably originated in the language of drinkers, pub owners, and glass manufacturers. They were slang, and we have little chance of guessing who and in what circumstances coined them.
Posted on January 16, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Very long ago, one of our correspondents asked me how irregular forms like good'better and go'went originated. Not only was he aware of the linguistic side of the problem but he also knew the technical term for this phenomenon, namely 'suppletion.' One cannot say the simplest sentence in English without running into suppletive forms. Consider the conjugation of the verb to be: am, is, are. Why is the list so diverse? And why is it mad'madder and rude'ruder, but bad'worse and good'better?
Posted on January 9, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman One drinks to the coming New Year, and one drinks while remembering the old one. Besides, some do it according to the Gregorian calendar, while others prefer the Julian one. As could be expected, the end of the world has been delayed and life continues. I was touched by the kind words from our regular correspondents; over time they have become my good friends.
Posted on January 2, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman A Happy New Year to our readers and correspondents! Questions, comments, and friendly corrections have been a source of inspiration to this blog throughout 2012, as they have been since its inception. Quite a few posts appeared in response to the questions I received through OUP and privately (by email). As before, the most exciting themes have been smut and spelling.
Posted on December 26, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman This is a story of again; gain will be added as an afterthought. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, dictionaries informed their users that again is pronounced with a diphthong, that is, with the same vowel as in the name of the letter A.
Posted on December 19, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Some time ago, I devoted three posts to alcoholic beverages: ale, beer, and mead. It has occurred to me that, since I have served drinks, I should also take care of wine glasses. Bumper is an ideal choice for the beginning of this series because of its reference to a large glass full to overflowing. It is a late word, as words go: no citation in the OED predates 1677. If I am not mistaken, the first lexicographer to include it in his dictionary was Samuel Johnson (1755). For a long time bumper may have been little or not at all known in polite society.
Posted on December 12, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman For some time I have fought a trench war, trying to prove that fowl and fly are not connected. The pictures of an emu and an ostrich appended to the original post were expected to clinch the argument, but nothing worked. A few days ago, I saw a rafter of turkeys strutting leisurely along a busy street. Passersby were looking on with amused glee while drivers honked. The birds (clearly, 'fowl') crossed the road without showing the slightest signs of excitement.
Posted on December 5, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Booze is an enigmatic word, but not the way ale, beer and mead are. Those emerged centuries ago, and it does not come as a surprise that we have doubts about their ultimate origin. The noun booze is different: it does not seem to predate the beginning or the 18th century, with the verb booze 'to tipple, guzzle' making its way into a written text as early as 1300 (which means that it turned up in everyday speech some time earlier). The riddles connected with booze are two.
Posted on April 6, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Toasting, a noble art, deserves the attention of all those (etymologists included) who drink for joy, rather than for getting drunk. The origin of the verb to toast 'parch,' which has been with us since the end of the 14th century, poses no problems. Old French had toster 'roast, grill,' and Italian tostare seems to be an unaltered continuation of the Romance protoform. Tost- is the root of the past participle of Latin torrere (the second conjugation) 'parch.' English has the same root in torrid and less obviously
Posted on April 13, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman The word beestings once had its day in court. About half a century ago, American linguists were busy discussing whether there is something they called juncture, a boundary signal that supposedly helps people to distinguish ice cream from I scream when they hear such combinations. A special sign (#) was introduced in transcription: /ais#krim/ as opposed to /ai#skrim/. The two crown examples for the existence of juncture in Modern English were nitrate versus night rate and beestings versus bee stings. I remember asking
Posted on April 20, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Habit, in addition to the meaning that is universally known ('settled disposition of mind and body'), can also designate 'apparel,' even though in restricted contexts, such as monk's habit or riding habit. At first sight, these senses do not belong together, and yet they do. The word is, of course, a 'loan' from French. (I have mentioned more than once that linguistic loans are permanent, for they are never returned, except when, for example, an ancient Germanic, that is, Franconian word
Posted on April 27, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman The best way of finding out whether 'the world' is watching you is to err. The moment I deviate from the path of etymological virtue I am rebuffed, and this keeps me on my toes. Even an innocent typo 'causes disappointment' (as it should). Walter W. Skeat: 'But the dictionary-maker must expect, on the one hand, to be snubbed when he makes a mistake, and on the other, to be neglected when he is right' (1890). Apparently, this blog does not exist in a vacuum, though I would welcome more questions and comments in addition to rebuttals and neglect. Among other things, I noticed that
Posted on May 4, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman For this essay I have to thank Walter Turner, who asked me about the origin of larrup. The verb means 'beat, thrash, whip, flog.' Long before my database became available in printed form as A Bibliography of English Etymology, I described in a special post what kind of lexical fish my small-meshed net had caught. (Sorry for the florid style. I remember a dean saying in irritation to one of the speakers at
Posted on May 11, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Lunker seems to be well-known in the United States and very little in British English. Mark Twain used lunkhead 'blockhead.' Lunker surfaced in books later, but lunkhead must have been preceded by lunk, whatever it meant. In today's American English, lunker has several unappetizing and gross connotations, and we will let them be: one cannot constantly deal with turd and genitals.
Posted on May 18, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Because of the frequency of the words the, this, that, these, those, them, their, there, then, and with, the letter h probably occurs in our texts more often than any other (for Shakespeare's epoch thee and thou should have been added). But then of course we have think, three, though, through, thousand, and words with ch, sh,
Posted on May 25, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman I was delighted to hear from a fellow journalist that his experience matches mine: no reaction when one's work is good and immediate rebuke when one errs. However, critics save us from complacency, so may they keep their vigil. I am particularly grateful for the explanation about the difference between in future 'from now on' and in the future 'in days to come,' because
Posted on June 1, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Practically everything that can be said about the origin of penguin has been said in the OED, and in what follows I will only touch on three later works on the subject. It must be admitted that these works are almost as flightless as the bird they discuss. Here is the relevant part of the digest of the OED's long note, as it appears in The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology: ''¦of unknown origin; first recorded in both applications [that is, as 'great auk' and as 'penguin'] in reports
Posted on June 8, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Like the previous post on penguin, this one has been written in response to a question from our correspondent. His surname is Jump, and he has investigated the origin of the homonymous verb quite well. My task consists in adding a few details to what can be found in the Internet and easily available dictionaries.
Posted on June 15, 2011
Posted on June 22, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Half of 2011 is behind us. This is reason enough for looking through one's notes and offering a retrospect. Old Business Once again many thanks to those who responded to my question about the difference between in future and in the future. I am sure
Posted on June 29, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Before we embark on the etymology of golf, something should be said about the pronunciation of the word. Golf does not rhyme with wolf (because long ago w changed the vowel following it), but in the speech of some people it rhymes with oaf, and 'goafers' despises everyone who would allow l to creep in
Posted on July 6, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Where there is golf, there are clubs; hence this post. But club is an intriguing word regardless of the association. It surfaced only in Middle English. Since the noun believed to be its etymon, namely klubba, has been attested in Old Icelandic, dictionaries say that club came to English with the Vikings or their descendants. Perhaps it did. In Icelandic, klubba coexists with its synonym klumba, and the opinion prevails that bb developed from mb, which later became mp.
Posted on July 13, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman It is inevitable that after dealing with club 'cudgel' we should ask ourselves where club 'group of members' came from. Some people think that the explanation is natural and easy. Skeat was among them. Following his etymology of club 'cudgel,' he also derived this club from a Scandinavian source and commented: 'Lit[erally] 'a clump of people'.
Posted on July 20, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman When asked about the origin of a certain word, I often answer: 'I have no idea' (in addition, of course, to 'I don't remember' and 'I have to look it up in a good dictionary'). Sometimes, after consulting a dictionary, I add: 'No one knows.' The questioners express surprise: a doctor should be able to diagnose patients, a plumber is called to fix the leak, and etymologists are evidently paid for explaining the origin of words. There may or might be a fat living in
Posted on July 27, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Inkling: English is full of such cozy, homey words. There is the noun inkle 'linen tape or thread' and the verb inkle 'to whisper.' The noun is still listed as current, while the verb, which was extremely rare in the past, has survived only in dialectal use. Both, as well as inkling, were first recorded in Middle English, but little can be said about them. Winkle, twinkle, and crinkle shed no light on their past. Inkle 'tape' and inkle 'whisper' don't seem to belong together. Dutch has enkel 'simple,' and Swedish has enkel 'single.'
Posted on August 3, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman In those rare cases in which people ask my advice about good writing, I tell them not to begin (to not begin?) their works with epigraphs from Mark Twain or Oscar Wilde, for the rest will look like an insipid anticlimax, and, disdainful of ground-to-dust buzzwords and familiar quotations, I also suggest that people avoid (naturally, like the plague) such titles as 'A Tale of Two Friendships/ Losses/ Wars,' etc. and resist the temptation to
Posted on August 10, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Suggestions on the origin of tennis go back to the beginning of English etymological lexicography, and one can teach a semester-long course by using only the attempts to discover who, where, when, and why called the game this. The game of tennis is not called tennis in any other language, unless a borrowing from English is used (as happened to hockey and football among others), and some people thought this was reason enough to insist on the English origin of the word. They asked questions like: 'Why should we go
Posted on August 17, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman From time to time I mention the unsung heroes of English etymology, but only once have I devoted a post to such a hero (Frank Chance), though I regularly sing praises to Charles P.G. Scott, the etymologist for The Century Dictionary. Today I would like to speak about Joseph Wright (1855-1930). He was not an etymologist in the strict sense of this term, but no article on the origin of English words can do without consulting The English Dialect Dictionary he edited.
Posted on August 24, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman One of our most faithful correspondents writes: 'According to the Wall Street Journal, Indiana now outlawed teaching script in schools, so the kids can concentrate on their typing.' He was saddened by the news, and so was I. He asked me about non-cursive writing in old times, especially in the days of Chaucer. Here is a
Posted on August 31, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman We are in deep waters here. A first puzzle is that ship has exact cognates in Frisian, Dutch, German, Scandinavian, and Gothic, but nowhere outside Germanic. The ancient Indo-Europeans called their floating vessel something else, and we know what they called it. The modern echo of that word can be seen in Latin navis (from whose root we have navigation; and remember Captain Nemo's Nautilus 'little ship' and the Argonauts?), as well as in several other languages. So why ship?
Posted on September 7, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Alongside Old Icelandic skip 'ship,' we find the verb skipa 'arrange; assign.' It is tempting to suggest that the unattested meaning of this verb was either 'arrange things on a ship; prepare a ship for a voyage; make it secure and shipshape' or even 'board a ship, travel by ship,' because the connection between skip and skipa can hardly be doubted. However, not improbably, the earliest meaning of ship was simply 'thing made, artifact,' rather than 'vessel,' with skipa reminding us of that sense.
Posted on September 14, 2011
I decided to stay at sea for at least two more weeks. The history of the word frigate is expected to comfort Germanic scholars, who may not know that, regardless of the language, the names of ships invariably give etymologists grief. In English, frigate is from French, and in French it is from Italian, so that the question is: Where did Italian fregata come from? Naturally, nobody knows. Although the literature
Posted on September 21, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Ingle is usually derived from Celtic. The Scots form is the same as the English one, while Irish Gaelic has aingeal. The Celtic word is a borrowing of Latin ignis 'fire' (cf. Engl. ignite, ignition). Therefore, some etymologists derive Engl. ingle directly from the Latin diminutive igniculus; ingle nook gives this derivation some support. Be that as it may, no path leads from ingle to inkling.
Posted on September 28, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman The history of boat is no less obscure than the history of ship. Britain was colonized by Germanic-speakers in the fifth century CE from northern Germany and Denmark. It is hard to imagine that the invaders, who became known to history as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes and who must have known a good deal about navigation, stopped using boats after they crossed the Channel. But a cognate of boat has not turned up in any modern dialect spoken on the southern coast of the North Sea.
Posted on October 5, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman When we deal with the origin of ship and boat (the names of things pertaining to material culture), problems are almost predictable. Such words may have been borrowed from an unknown language (or from an attested language, but definitive proof of the connection is wanting) or coined in a way we are unable to reconstruct, but wife? Yet its etymology is no less obscure. My proposal will add to the existing stock of conjectures, and the future will show whether it has any chance of survival, let alone acceptance.
Posted on October 12, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman During five and a half years of its existence, this blog has featured the periodical Notes and Queries twice. Why I am turning to this subject again (now probably for the last time) will become clear at the end of the post. Notes and Queries appeared on November 3, 1849. In a series of short notes (naturally, notes) spread over the years 1876-1877, its first editor William John Thoms (1803-1885) told the world how the periodical had become a reality and how almost overnight
Posted on October 19, 2011
Nobody wants to be called a bigot, but accusations of bigotry are hurled at political opponents with great regularity, because (obviously) everyone who disagrees with us is a bigot, and it is to the popularity of this ignominious word that I ascribe the frequency with which I am asked about its origin. Rather long ago I wrote about bigot in the 'gleanings,' but answers in the 'gleanings' tend to be lost, while a separate essay will pop up in the Internet every time someone will ask: 'Where did bigot come from?'
Posted on October 26, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman This has been a long month, and I was very pleased to have such generous feedback. Today I'll only respond to the comments and will deal with the questions next Wednesday. Many thanks to our correspondents who take the time to agree and disagree with me and suggest new topics. In one comment, my responses were called derogatory. God forbid! Why should they even sound such to anyone? I may misunderstand an opponent or refuse to go all the way with him or her ('them'), but I am truly grateful for the attention my blog receives, and I like to hear counterarguments, even though no one's opinion has ever changed as a result of discussion.
Posted on November 2, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Last week I answered only the questions that needed relatively detailed answers. Today's 'issue' will be devoted to shorter queries.
Posted on November 9, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman The spelling of those two words does not bother us only because both are so common and learned early in life. Yet why not shure and shugar? There is a parallel case, and it too leaves us indifferent, though for a different reason.
Posted on November 16, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman All sources inform us about the Arabic-Turkish home of the word coffee, though in the European languages some forms were taken over directly from Arabic, so that the etymological part of the relevant entry in dictionaries and encyclopedias needs modification. There is a possibility of coffee being connected with the name of the kingdom of Kaffa, but this question need not bother us at the moment. The main puzzle is the development of the form coffee rather than its distant origin.
Posted on November 23, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman It was good to hear from Masha Bell, an ally in the losing battle for reformed spelling. Her remarks can be found at the end of the previous post (it was about su- in sure and sugar), and here I'll comment briefly only on her questions.Â
Posted on November 30, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman It will be seen that the main question about tea is the same as about coffee, namely: How did the form tea conquer its numerous rivals?
Posted on December 7, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Some time ago, a colleague asked me what materials I have on the place name Rotten Row; she was going to write an article on this subject. But her plans changed, and the article did not appear. My folders contain a sizable batch of letters to Notes and Queries and essays from other popular sources dealing with Rotten Row. I am not a specialist in onomastics, and, if I am not mistaken, the question about the etymology of Rotten Row has never been answered to everybody's satisfaction.
Posted on December 14, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman The year 2011 is coming to an end. Strange that we say 'come to an end,' even though a year, unlike a rope, a street, and even life, in which it is hard to make ends (or both ends) meet, can have only one end, but such are the caprices of usage. In any case, the end of the year is close at hand. Those interested in such tricks may recollect that year sometimes needs neither the definite nor the indefinite article when we speak about this time of year, and so it has been for centuries.
Posted on December 21, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Last Wednesday, in anticipation of the inevitable calendar leap, I discussed the origin of the word end. The end has come. This post happens to be the last in 2011 ' not really a rite of passage, for a week from now another Wednesday will bring the world another post, dated January 4, 2012. As announced, it will be devoted to the verb begin. One should not take December or oneself too seriously, but I am pleased to say that this blog is read and quoted by many and that I continue to receive letters and comments from all over the world.
Posted on December 28, 2011
Posted on December 29, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman As promised, the first of the fifty-two posts due to appear in 2012 will be devoted to the verb begin, whose siblings have been attested in all the West Germanic languages (English is one of them) and Gothic. Surprisingly, they did not turn up in Old Scandinavian, except for Danish (under the influence of German?). Old Icelandic for 'begin' was byrja, and its cognates continued into Norwegian and Swedish, let alone Modern Icelandic and Faroese. The etymology of begin has not been explained to everybody's satisfaction, but such is the history of most etymological flesh.
Posted on January 4, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Like all word columnists, I keep receiving the same questions again and again. Approximately once a month someone asks me about the origin of the F-word, the C-word, and gay. Well, the C-word has been investigated in great detail, and a few conjectures are not so bad.
Posted on January 11, 2012
To an etymologist ache is one of the most enigmatic words. Although it has been attested in Old English, its unquestionable cognates in other languages are few.
Posted on January 18, 2012
In the post on the C-word, I made two mistakes, for both of which I am sorry, though neither was due to chance. In Middle High German, the word klotze 'vagina' existed, and I was going to write that, given such a noun, the verb klotzen 'copulate' can also be reconstructed.
Posted on January 25, 2012
by Anatoly Liberman The question about the origin of gay 'homosexual' has been asked and answered many times (and always correctly), so that we needn't expect sensational discoveries in this area. The adjective gay, first attested in Middle English, is of French descent; in the fourteenth century it meant both 'joyous' and 'bright; showy.' The OED gives no attestations of gay 'immoral' before 1637.
Posted on February 1, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman I usually try to discuss words whose origin is so uncertain that, when it comes to etymology, dictionaries refuse to commit themselves. But every now and then words occur whose history has been investigated most convincingly, and their history is worth recounting. Such is the word odd. Everything is odd about it, including the fact that its original form has not survived in English.
Posted on February 8, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Unlike hogwash or, for example, flapdoodle, the noun balderdash is a word of 'uncertain' (some authorities even say of 'unknown') origin. However, what is 'known' about it is probably sufficient for questioning the disparaging epithets.
Posted on February 15, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman I borrowed the title of this post from an ad for an alcoholic beverage whose taste remains unknown to me. The picture shows two sparsely clad very young females sitting in a bar on both sides of a decently dressed but bewildered youngster. I assume their age allows all three characters to drink legally and as much as they want. My concern is not with their thirst but with the word dude. After all, this blog is about the origin of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, rather than the early stages of alcoholism.
Posted on February 22, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman There has been a good deal to glean this month because the comments and responses have been numerous and also because, although February is a short month even in a leap year, in 2012 it had five Wednesdays. Among the questions was one about the profession and qualifications of an etymologist. It is a recurring question from young correspondents, and I have answered it briefly more than once, but always in the 'gleanings.' It occurred to me that perhaps I should write a short essay on this subject and, if someone else asks me about such things in the future, I will be able to refer to this post. The rest will be discussed next week.
Posted on February 29, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The Infamous C-Word. This is the letter I received soon after the publication of the post devoted to our (formerly) most unpronounceable word: ''¦I am writing to ask you if you have run across it [this word] as a nautical term. I am a former sailing ship mariner (a.k.a. 'tall ships') and sailmaker and currently maritime historian/editor for the National Maritime Historical Society.
Posted on March 7, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Since this blog is now in the seventh year of its existence (if I remember correctly, it started in March 2006), some questions tend to recur. Our correspondent wants to know the origin of the word winter. Long ago I touched on winter and summer, but briefly, in the 'gleanings,' so that it may be useful to devote a short series to the Germanic names of the seasons, leave these posts in the archive, and thus avoid possible repetition.
Posted on March 14, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The ancient Indo-Europeans lived in the northern hemisphere (see the previous post), but, although this conclusion is certain, it does not follow that they divided the year into four seasons. Our perception of climate is colored too strongly by Vivaldi, the French impressionists, and popular restaurants. At some time, the Indo-Europeans dominated the territory from India to Scandinavia (hence the name scholars gave them). They lived and traveled in many climate zones, and no word for 'winter,' 'spring,' 'summer,' and 'autumn' is common to the entire family; yet some cover several language groups.
Posted on March 21, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman I have received many questions, some of which are familiar (they recur with great regularity) and others that are new and will answer a few today and the rest in a month's time. Nostratic Hypothesis. Our correspondent Mr. Steve Miller asked me whether I ever treat the topic of language evolution and, if I do, what I think of the Nostratic hypothesis.
Posted on March 28, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The Latin for 'winter; snowstorm' is hiems, a noun related in a convoluted way to Engl. hibernate. It is a reflex (continuation) of an old Indo-European word for 'winter,' and its cognates in various languages are numerous. Germanic must also have had one of them, but it lies hidden like the proverbial needle in a hayrick. Old Icelandic (OI) gymbr means 'one-year old sheep.' In the Scandinavian area, this word does not have an exotic ring, as follows from Modern Icelandic and Norwegian gimber ~ gymber ~ gimmerlam (the latter refers specifically to a sheep that has not yet lambed), along with Swedish gymmer with its dialectal variants.
Posted on April 4, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman My February blog on dude has been picked up by several websites, and rather numerous comments were the result of the publicity. Below, I will say what I think of the word's 'true' etymology and quote two pronouncements on 'dudedom,' as they once appeared in The Nation. But before doing all that, I should thank the readers who pointed to me the existence of some recent contributions to the subject.
Posted on April 11, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman My romance with shrimp began when, years ago, I looked up the etymology of scrumptious in some modern dictionary. Naturally, it turned out that the word's origin is unknown (this happens every time I try to satisfy my curiosity in the area of my specialization). The usually sensible Century Dictionary suggests that scrumptious is an alternation of scrimptious, from scrimption, a funny noun going back to scrimp. The OED thinks so too.
Posted on April 18, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Two weeks ago, I pondered the fortunes of the gregarious shrimp. The next ingredient of the scr- ~ shr- cocktail will be the much maligned but innocent shrew. As The Century Dictionary puts it, 'there is no foundation in fact for the vulgar notion that shrews are poisonous, or for any other of the popular superstitions respecting these harmless little creatures.' The shrew is an insectivorous mammal. An old etymology traced shrew to a root meaning 'cut' (as in shear) and glossed the word as 'biter' on account of its allegedly venomous bite. Another version of this etymology refers to the shrew's pointed snout. The Old High German cognate of shrew meant 'dwarf' (a figure cut short?).
Posted on May 2, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Why don't good and hood rhyme with food and mood? Why are friend and fiend spelled alike but pronounced differently? There is a better way of asking this question, because the reason for such oddities is always the same: English retains the spelling that made sense centuries ago. At one time, the graphic forms we learn one by one made sense. Later the pronunciation changed, while the spelling remained the same. Therefore, the right question is: What has happened to the pronunciation of the words that give us trouble?
Posted on May 9, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Several people pointed out to me that I cannot distinguish a shrimp from a prawn, and I am afraid they are right. The picture copied for the shrimp post had the title 'Shrimp cocktail,' but the shrimp there are too big and are really prawns. In any case, I decided to atone for my mistake and write a post on the etymology of prawn. This plan was hard to realize, because the origin of prawn is really, that is, hopelessly unknown: the word exists, but no one can say where it has come from. It is strange that more or less the same holds for shrimp and shark, though both are less opaque. There must have been some system behind calling those sea creatures. The fishermen who coined such names had a reason to call a shrimp a shrimp and a prawn a prawn.
Posted on May 16, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The fishy series in this blog began with shrimp, reached the heights of prawn, and now, bypassing countless intermediate steps, will offer a discussion of shark. I am sorry to admit that despite the monster's size and voracity I can say deplorably little about the chosen subject, but, since I always deal with obscure vocabulary, I suffer from self-inflicted wounds and have no reason to complain. Before I come to the point, an apology is in order. While compiling my voluminous bibliography of English etymology, I didn't encounter references to Tom Jones's publication on shark.
Posted on May 23, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Shrew again. Soon after I posted an essay on shrew, in which I dissociated that word from a verb meaning 'cut,' a correspondent asked me how my etymology (from 'devil') could be reconciled with the obvious connection between Old Engl. scirfemus (related to sceorfan 'cut') and German Schermaus (related to scheren, the same meaning), the latter from Middle High German scheremus. (The relevant forms can be found in the OED.) The connection referred to in the letter cannot be denied, but I think that both the Old English and the Middle High German word owe their existence to folk etymology: the shrew was associated with venom and its name underwent change.
Posted on May 30, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Spelling. I am grateful for the generous comments on my post in the heartbreak series 'The Oddest English Spellings.' Several years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Masha Bell at a congress in Coventry, and around that time I corresponded with Valerie Yule. A positive comment from Peter Demaere (Canada) reinforced my message. The situation is as odd as English spelling. Spelling reform had famous supporters from the start. Great linguists, including Walter W. Skeat and Otto Jespersen, and outstanding authors and public figures agreed that we should no longer spell the way we do.
Posted on June 6, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The literature on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary is extensive, but I am not sure that there is a book-length study of the reception of this great dictionary. When in 1884 the OED's first fascicle reached the public, it was met with near universal admiration. I am aware of only two critics who went on record with their opinion that the venture was doomed to failure because it would take forever to complete, because all the words can not and should not be included in a dictionary, and because the slips at Murray's disposal must contain numerous misspellings and mistakes.
Posted on June 13, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The problem with Christopher Robin's woozles and heffalumps was that no one knew exactly what those creatures looked like. The boy just happened to be 'lumping along' when he detected the exotic creature. 'I saw one once,' said Piglet. 'At least I think I did,' he said. 'Only perhaps it wasn't.' So did I,' said Pooh, wondering what a Heffalump was like. 'You don't often see them,' said Christopher Robin carelessly. Tracking a woozle was no easy task either. 'Hallo!' said Piglet, 'what are you doing?'
Posted on June 20, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The fish known as Clupea harengas has two main names: in the Scandinavian countries, it is called sild or something similar (this name made its way to Finland and Russia), while in the lands where the West Germanic languages are spoken (English belongs to this group) the word is herring, also with several variants, for example, German Hering (the spelling H¤ring is quite obsolete), Dutch haring, and so forth. The rarely used English word sile 'young herring' is a late adaptation of sild. The origin of both sild and herring is doubtful.
Posted on July 11, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Not that I can say anything quotable on the subject of the mackerel, but people keep writing about it and the attempts to understand how this fish got its name are so interesting that the story may be worth telling. Only one thing seems certain. Mackerel first appeared in a West-European text, in the French form makerels (plural) about 1140 (which means that it was known much earlier), and no one doubts that the English borrowed their word from Old or Anglo-French. From France it spread to other lands, sometimes through an intermediary. The question is why the French called the mackerel this.
Posted on July 18, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The forms in the title are substandard but ubiquitous in conversational English, and the universally understood reference to the genre called whodunit (it originated about seventy years ago) testifies to its partial victory. I have often heard the question about their origin and will try to answer it, though my information is scanty and to the best of my knowledge, a convincing theory of whodunit (the construction, not the genre) is lacking, which does not augur well for a detective story.
Posted on August 15, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman All modern dictionaries state that the adverb ajar goes back to the phrase on char, literally 'on the turn' (= 'in the act of turning'). This is, most probably, a correct derivation. However, such unanimity among even the most authoritative recent sources should be taken with caution because reference books tend to copy from one another. Recycling a plausible opinion again and again produces an illusion of solidity in an area notorious for debatable results. That is why it is so interesting to read books published before Skeat's dictionary (1882) and the OED came out.
Posted on August 22, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Farting and participles (not to be confused with cabbages and kings). Summer is supposed to be a dead season, but I cannot complain: many people have kindly offered their comments and sent questions. Of the topics discussed in July and August, flatulence turned out to be the greatest hit. I have nothing to add to the comments on fart. Apparently, next to the election campaign, the problem of comparable interest was breaking wind in Indo-European.
Posted on August 29, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman I have written more than once that the only hope to reform English spelling would be by doing it piecemeal, that is, by nibbling away at a comfortable pace. Unfortunately, reformers used to attack words like have and give and presented hav and giv to the irate public. This was too radical a measure; bushes exist for beating about them. Several chunks of orthographic fat are crying to be cut off.
Posted on September 12, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman An etymologist is constantly on the lookout for so-called motivation. Why is a cat called cat, and why do English speakers say tree if the Romans called the same object arbor? As everybody knows, the 'ultimate truth' usually escapes us. Once upon a time (about five thousand or even more years ago?) in a hotly debated locality there lived the early Indo-Europeans, and we still use words going back to their partly unpronounceable sound complexes.
Posted on September 19, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman First and foremost, many thanks to those who have sent questions and comments and corrected my mistakes. A good deal has been written about the nature of mistakes, and wise dicta along the errare humanum est lines have been formulated. Yes, to err is human, but it is the stupidity and 'injustice' of some mistakes that are particularly vexing.
Posted on September 26, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Last week's 'gleanings' were devoted to spelling and ended with the promise to address the other questions in the next installment. But, since the previous part inspired some comments, I will briefly return to Spelling Reform. One of the questions was: 'Who needs the reform?' Everybody does. At present, children spend hours learning 'hieroglyphs' like chair, choir, character, ache, douche, weird, pierce, any and many versus Annie and manly, live (verb) versus live (adjective), and hundreds of others.
Posted on October 3, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The title of this post sounds like an introduction of two standup comedians, but my purpose is to narrate a story of two nautical words. The origin of one seems to be lost, the other looks deceptively transparent; but there may be hope. Both turned up in the seventeenth century: in 1624 (awning) and 1607 (tarpaulin) respectively.
Posted on October 17, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Etymology, a subject rarely studied on our campuses, enjoys the respect of many people, even though they persist in calling it entomology. Human beings always want to know the origin of things, but sometimes etymology is made to carry double, like the horse in O. Henry's story 'The Roads We Take.' For instance, it is sometimes said that etymology helps us to use words correctly. Alas, it very seldom does so. If someone asks us about the meaning of the adjective debonair and is not only informed that a debonair man is genial, suave, and so forth but also that the adjective goes back to the French phrase de bon aire 'of good disposition (nature),' this may help.
Posted on October 24, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Fowl, fox, and pooch. My cautious reservations about a tie between the etymon of fowl and the verb fly were dismissed in one of the comments. Therefore, a few additional notes on that word may be in order. The origin of fowl is uncertain, that is, controversial, not quite unknown.
Posted on November 7, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Bullying is a hot topic. Strict laws have been passed with the view of intimidating the intimidators or at least keeping them at bay. Regardless of the consequences such measures may have, linguists cannot ignore the problem and keep out of the public eye. So to arms, comrades! That a word like bully should vex etymologists needn't surprise anybody.
Posted on November 14, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman It has been a tempestuous month in the world but a quiet one in the department of English etymology. Both the comments and the questions I received dealt with separate words, and there have been not too many of them. Lollygag. In July 2007 I already wrote what I thought about this word. Although most people, at least in America, say lollygag, its doublet lallygag is well-known. The variation is typical.
Posted on November 28, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman It cannot but come as a surprise that against the background of countless important words whose origin has never been discovered some totally insignificant verbs and nouns have been traced successfully and convincingly to the very beginning of Indo-European. Fart ('not in delicate use') looks like a product of our time, but it has existed since time immemorial. Even the nuances have not been lost: one thing is to break wind loudly (farting); quite a different thing is to do it quietly (the now obscure 'fisting').
Posted on July 25, 2012
Question: How large is an average fluent speaker's vocabulary? Answer: I have often heard this question, including its variant: 'Is it true that English contains more words than any other (European) language?' The problem is that 'an average fluent speaker' does not exist. Also, it is important to distinguish between how many words we recognize (our so-called passive vocabulary) and how many we use in everyday communication (active vocabulary).
Posted on March 30, 2011
Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, and Gordon Cook
Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, and Gordon Cook
Alex Bayliss, Robert Hedges, and Robert Otlet
Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, and Gordon Cook
Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, and Gordon Cook
Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, and Gordon Cook
Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and H. R. Woudhuysen
David Wilton
David Bach
Joanne B. Eicher
Michael D. Coogan
Yiannis Gabriel
$19.95
Paperback
Published: 13 April 2009
336 Pages
5 1/2 X 8 1/2 inches
ISBN: 9780195387070
Ebook
This title is available as an ebook. To purchase, visit your preferred ebook provider.
Bookseller Code (06)
Written in a funny, charming, and conversational style, Word Origins is the first book to offer a thorough investigation of the history and the science of etymology, making this little-known field accessible to everyone interested in the history of words.
Anatoly Liberman, an internationally acclaimed etymologist, takes the reader by the hand and explains the many ways that English words can be made, and the many ways in which etymologists try to unearth the origins of words. Every chapter is packed with dozens of examples of proven word histories, used to illustrate the correct ways to trace the origins of words as well as some of the egregiously bad ways to trace them. He not only tells the known origins of hundreds of words, but also shows how their origins were determined. And along the way, the reader is treated to a wealth of fascinating word facts. Did they once have bells in a belfry? No, the original meaning of belfry was siege tower. Are the words isle and island, raven and ravenous, or pan and pantry related etymologically? No, though they look strikingly similar, these words came to English via different routes.
Partly a history, partly a how-to, and completely entertaining, Word Origins invites readers behind the scenes to watch an etymologist at work.
Anatoly Liberman is Professor of the Humanities at the University of Minnesota. For the past seventeen years, he has been working on a new etymological dictionary of English.
The history of "dude" has been documented with amazing accuracy.
Posted on December 14, 2022
The history of "dude" has been documented with amazing accuracy.
Posted on December 7, 2022
As everybody knows, the phrase in the title, l'esprit d'escalier, refers to a good thought occurring too late.
Posted on November 30, 2022
I decided not to wait another week, let alone another four weeks, and discuss the notes and queries from my mail. As usual, I express my gratitude to those who have read the posts, added their observations, or corrected my mistakes.
Posted on November 23, 2022
We love books and movies about vampires, don't we? Everybody knows who Dracula was, and many people believe that we owe the entire myth to him. This, however, is not true. In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist deals with the history of the word "vampire."
Posted on November 16, 2022
The Oxford Etymologist answers readers' questions on the origin of the word "race", variants of "in one's stockinged feet", the folkloric creature Lady Hoonderlarly, and "bonfire."
Posted on November 9, 2022
One does not need to be an etymologist to suggest that stocking consists of "stock-" and "-ing". The trouble is that though "-ing" occurs in some nouns, it looks odd in stocking. Few English words have more seemingly incompatible senses than stock.
Posted on November 2, 2022
I have always wanted to write about the enigmatic phrase "red gold." Our characterization of color is a matter of culture, not physiology.
Posted on October 26, 2022
The origin of the word blatherskite ~ bletherskate 'foolish talk; foolish talker' is supposedly secure. The Oxford Etymologist investigates...
Posted on October 19, 2022
The origin of the word blatherskite ~ bletherskate 'foolish talk; foolish talker' is supposedly secure. The Oxford Etymologist investigates...
Posted on October 12, 2022
While trying to solve etymological riddles, we often encounter references to sound-imitation where we do not expect them, but the core examples hold no surprise. It seems that nouns and verbs describing all kinds of noises should illustrate the role of onomatopoeia, and indeed, hum, ending in m, makes one think of quiet singing (crooning) and perhaps invites peace, while drum, with its dr-, probably evokes the idea of the noise associated with this instrument.
Posted on October 5, 2022
Did heathens live in a heath, surrounded by heather? You will find thoughts on this burning question of our time at the end of today's blog post.
Posted on September 28, 2022
For a long time, the word "condom" was unprintable. Neither the original OED nor The Century Dictionary featured the word. Several venues for discovering the origin of "condom" have been tried. It surfaced in texts at the beginning of the eighteenth century, but we cannot be sure that the word was coined in England.
Posted on September 21, 2022
The mattock, a simple tool, has a name troublesome to etymologists even though it has been known since the Old English period. In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist explores a new hypothesis for the origins of "mattock".
Posted on September 14, 2022
The history of "cheek by jowl" and especially the pronunciation of "jowl" could serve as the foundation of a dramatic plot, says the Oxford Etymologist in this week's blog post.
Posted on September 7, 2022
The history of "cheek by jowl" and especially the pronunciation of "jowl" could serve as the foundation of a dramatic plot, says the Oxford Etymologist in this week's blog post.
Posted on August 31, 2022
Why do so many words beginning with sn- evoke unpleasant associations? The Oxford Etymologist answers a reader's question.
Posted on August 10, 2022
The Oxford Etymologist discusses the origin of English's loudest short word: hurrah!
Posted on August 3, 2022
The Oxford Etymologist discusses the origin of English's shortest words, including pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions.
Posted on July 27, 2022
Today, most English speakers will recognize the idiom: to pull one's leg means 'to deceive playfully, to tease.' Its origin has not been discovered. I usually stay away from guesswork, but in a blog, vague conjectures may not do anyone any harm.
Posted on July 20, 2022
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist discussed the English Spelling Reform movement.
Posted on July 6, 2022
The etymology of finger is debatable, and toe fares only a bit better.
Posted on June 29, 2022
No one doubts that "bachelor" came to Middle English at the end of the thirteenth century from Old French and meant 'a young knight." Most conjectures about the etymology of this mysterious word were offered long ago.
Posted on June 22, 2022
No one doubts that "bachelor" came to Middle English at the end of the thirteenth century from Old French and meant 'a young knight." Most conjectures about the etymology of this mysterious word were offered long ago.
Posted on June 15, 2022
Where do you find the origin and, if necessary, the meaning of never say die, never mind, and other phrases of this type? Should you look them up under never, say, die, or mind? Will they be there?
Posted on June 8, 2022
Where do you find the origin and, if necessary, the meaning of never say die, never mind, and other phrases of this type? Should you look them up under never, say, die, or mind? Will they be there?
Posted on June 1, 2022
Idioms are phrases and often pose questions not directly connected with linguistics. Linguists interested in the origin of idioms should be historians and archeologists.
Posted on May 25, 2022
Idioms are a thankful subject: one needs no etymological algebra or linguistic preparation for suggesting the origin of phrases. And yet it may be useful to explain how a professional goes about studying idioms.
Posted on May 18, 2022
The time has come to write something about the etymology of the word milk. Don't hold your breath: 'origin unknown,' that is, no one can say why milk is called milk, but then no one can say why water is called water either.
Posted on May 11, 2022
Some of the most common words appeared in English late. Yet their origin is obscure. Of course, while dealing with old words, we also encounter unexpected solutions.
Posted on April 27, 2022
Recently I have reread August Pott's essay on the word "elephant" and decided to write something about this word. I have nothing original to say about it and depend on two works: an excellent book in Italian and a detailed essay in English. Not everybody may have read them; hence my inroad on this convoluted problem.
Posted on April 20, 2022
Strange as it may seem, the origin of the verb buy remains a matter of uninspiring debate, at least partly because we don't know what this verb meant before it acquired the modern sense.
Posted on April 13, 2022
This week, the Oxford Etymologist answers readers questions in his latest etymology gleanings.
Posted on April 6, 2022
My today's word is bonfire, which turned up in texts at the end of the fifteenth century. Seven years ago, I devoted a post to it but today I know more about this tricky compound and can write the story in a different way.
Posted on March 30, 2022
This is the second and last part of the series on the origin of the word "soul." The perennial interest in the etymology of this word should not surprise us. It is our inability to find a convincing solution that causes astonishment and disappointment.
Posted on March 23, 2022
If we expect someone to save our souls, this person won't be an etymologist, because no language historian knows the origin of the word soul, and without a convincing etymology, how can anyone save the intangible substance it denotes? Yet nothing prevents us from looking at the main attempts to decipher the mysterious word.
Posted on March 16, 2022
In this week's blog post, the Oxford Etymologist dives deeper into the competing origin theories for the verb "bless"'with "curse" as an added bonus.
Posted on March 9, 2022
From God (or rather, god) to bless. But before turning to the history of the word "bless", I would like to respond to the questions asked in connection with the "good"/"God" dilemma.
Posted on March 2, 2022
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist details the etymology of the adjective "good". If it is not related to "god", then what is its origin?
Posted on February 23, 2022
A few days ago, I received a letter from a well-educated reader, who asked me whether the English words "god" and "good" are related.
Posted on February 16, 2022
"Understand" is a teaser: each of the two elements of this compound is clear, but why does it mean what it does?
Posted on February 9, 2022
In this month's round-up of questions from readers, the Oxford Etymologist tackles "see", "echo", "Baba Yaga", "masher", and more.
Posted on February 2, 2022
Today I'll try to say something about the verb "see." Once again, we'll have to admit that the more basic a word is, the less we know about its remote history.
Posted on January 26, 2022
The etymology of the word "hear" is especially tough - but life would be a dull thing is everything was clear.
Posted on January 19, 2022
The phrase in a/the twinkling of a bedpost (with the archaic variant bedstaff) means the same as in a twinkling of an eye, that is, 'very quickly,' because twinkle, when used metaphorically, refers to a rapid movement. Agreed: eyes and stars twinkle, but bedposts don't, and here is the rub.
Posted on January 12, 2022
The Oxford Etymologist is out of hibernation and picks up where he left off in mid-December. It may be profitable to return to the origin of "star", but from a somewhat broader perspective.
Posted on January 5, 2022
Nothing is known about the origin of the phrase "Milky Way." By contrast, the origin of the word "star" is not hopelessly obscure, which is good, because stars and obscurity have little in common.
Posted on December 15, 2021
Words, as linguistics tells us, are conventional signs. Some natural phenomenon is called rain or snow, and, if you don't know what those words mean, you will never guess. But everything in our consciousness militates against such a rupture between word and thing.
Posted on December 8, 2021
Both "thank" and "give" deserve our attention! And it is those two outwardly unexciting words that I'll offer today as part of our etymological feast.
Posted on December 1, 2021
Both "thank" and "give" deserve our attention! And it is those two outwardly unexciting words that I'll offer today as part of our etymological feast.
Posted on November 24, 2021
English (uncharacteristically) has two, if not even three, words for the sphere above us: sky, heaven, and firmament.
Posted on November 17, 2021
What do we call the world in which we live? The specifically Germanic noun "world" is perhaps the most puzzling word known in this area.
Posted on November 10, 2021
It is curious how often those who have tried to explain the origin of English idioms have referred to the occupation of printers. Regardless of their success, the attempts are worthy of note.
Posted on November 3, 2021
We are one more week closer to Halloween, and pumpkins are ubiquitous. How did the pumpkin get its name?
Posted on October 27, 2021
How can a ghost (any ghost) get its name, and why is the etymology of bogymen, gremlins, goblins, and spooks usually unknown?
Posted on October 20, 2021
A bit more is known about the origin of the words thaw and dew than about ice and snow. They are less impenetrable than those two, but they also contain riddles.
Posted on October 13, 2021
Winter is round the corner, and the best way to prepare for it is to read a few murky stories about the etymology of the relevant words: "ice" and "snow."
Posted on October 6, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist tackles questions from readers.
Posted on September 29, 2021
Why is searching for the origin of "ice" a forlorn hope? Because all the Germanic-speaking people had the same word for 'ice,' and yet we don't know where it came from.
Posted on September 22, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist discusses two slang idioms: "worth a Jew's eye" and "to save one's bacon".
Posted on September 15, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist dives into the lexicographical history of two puzzling English homonyms: "mother" and "haggard."
Posted on September 8, 2021
Posted on September 3, 2021
I am aware of only two English words whose origin has provoked enough passion and bad blood to inspire a thriller. The first such word is "cockney" and the second is "henchman".
Posted on August 25, 2021
The popularity of ninepence in proverbial sayings is amazing. To be sure, nine, along with three and seven, are great favorites of European folklore. No one knows for sure why just those numerals achieved such prominence.
Posted on August 18, 2021
Some homonyms are truly ancient: the words in question might sound alike or be nearly identical more than a millennium ago. But more often a newcomer appears from nowhere and pushes away his neighbors without caring for their well-being.
Posted on August 11, 2021
Chide remains a word 'of unknown origin,' even though the Online Etymological Dictionary mentions the hypothesis suggested in my 2008 An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology. Perhaps it might be interesting to some of our readers to know the history of research into the etymology of this verb.
Posted on August 4, 2021
This week's blog post concerns the origin of English "flock", as in a flock of gulls and a tuft of wool. The two flocks are not related and the origin of the first is unknown. I am unable to unravel this knot, but I can perhaps explain how the problem originated and venture a precarious hypothesis.
Posted on July 28, 2021
I have been meaning to write about homonyms for quite some time, and now this time has come. Here we are interested in one question only, to wit'why so many obviously different words are not distinguished in pronunciation, or, to change the focus of the enquiry, why language, constantly striving for the most economical and most perfect means of expression (or so it seems), has not done enough to get rid of those countless ambiguities.
Posted on July 21, 2021
Let me begin by saying that the best authorities disagree on the etymology of "beacon," and my suggestion with which I'll finish this essay is my own.
Posted on July 14, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist responds to readers' questions on "fieldfare," "sparrow," "heifer," "snide," and more.
Posted on July 7, 2021
Token is a Common Germanic word. The forms are Old English "tÄc(e)n", Old High German "zeihhan", etc. The English noun combined the senses 'sign, signal' and 'portent, marvel, wonder.' German "Zeichen" and Dutch "teken" are still alive but mean only 'indication, sign.'
Posted on June 30, 2021
Last week, I wrote about the troublesome origin of heifer. The oldest recorded form of heifer is HEAHFORE. I promised to return to the equally enigmatic- fore. I even wrote that perhaps the etymology of the bird name "fieldfare" would throw additional light on heifer. Birds often follow herds of cattle for sustenance, so that my idea is, on the face of it, not unreasonable. Just for those who may be not quite sure what bird a fieldfare is, let me explain: it is a thrush.
Posted on June 23, 2021
Twenty-five years ago, quite by chance, I looked up the etymology of heifer in a dictionary and discovered the statement: 'Origin unknown.' Other dictionaries were not much more informative, and I decided to pursue the subject. Thanks to this chance episode, etymology became my profession.
Posted on June 16, 2021
A curious exchange on the word "harebrained" in the periodical Notes and Queries in the first half of 1880 began with the statement that the word owes its origin to the idiom "as mad as a march hare." But are hares 'madder' than other wild animals? Probably not.
Posted on June 9, 2021
Eric Partridge is deservedly famous among word lovers. His main area of expertise was substandard English, that is, slang and cant. In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist offers a tribute to an indefatigable word hunter and a great expert in the field that interests many people.
Posted on June 2, 2021
Eric Partridge is deservedly famous among word lovers. His main area of expertise was substandard English, that is, slang and cant. In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist offers a tribute to an indefatigable word hunter and a great expert in the field that interests many people.
Posted on May 26, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist explores the origin of "dear" and the development of the various senses of the word.
Posted on May 19, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist revisits the word 'bodkin' and its kin.
Posted on May 12, 2021
Two things sometimes come as a surprise even to an experienced etymologist. First, it may turn out that such words happen to be connected as no one would suspect of having anything in common. Second is the ability of words to produce one another in what seems to be an arbitrary, capricious, or chaotic way, so that the entire group begins to resemble an analog of a creeping plant.
Posted on May 5, 2021
Haggis, to quote the OED, is 'a dish consisting of the heart, lungs, and liver of a sheep, calf, etc. (or sometimes of the tripe and chitterlings), minced with suet and oatmeal, seasoned with salt, pepper, onions, etc., and boiled like a large sausage in the maw of the animal.'
Posted on April 28, 2021
Etymologists often deal with a group of words that seem to be related, and yet the nature of the relationship is hard or impossible to demonstrate. Such groups are particularly instructive to investigate. I have long been interested in a possible connection between "limp" (adjective), "limp" (verb), and "lump."
Posted on April 21, 2021
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist responds to readers' queries, discussing "evil", "wicked", "sward", "hunt", "thraºÅ", "trash", and "tomorrow".
Posted on April 14, 2021
In the series on "trash" and its synonyms, I called attention to Spitzer's hypothesis on the origin of English "rubbish" and now I have unearthed Verdam's idea that Dutch "karwei" may have something in common with English "garbage." Resuscitating valuable ideas buried in the depths of old journals is an important part of etymologists' work. Convincing refutation is as valuable as agreement.
Posted on April 7, 2021
In the beginning, words for things wasted or thrown away tend to denote some concrete refuse and only later acquire a generic meaning. Yet, when several synonyms share the field, they are seldom fully interchangeable. Thus, trash, rubbish, junk, offal, and garbage either refer to different kinds of discarded objects or have different stylistic overtones. One also notices with some surprise that in Modern English, all such words are borrowings.
Posted on March 31, 2021
It is amazing how many words English has for things thrown away or looked upon as useless! The origin of some of them is transparent. Obviously, "offal" is something that falls off. Not all stories are so transparent. A case in point is "trash," the subject of today's blog post.
Posted on March 24, 2021
"Not everybody may know that 'yesterday' is one of the most enigmatic formations in the Indo-European language family." In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist explores the history of the adverb 'yesterday' and how the same word acquired two incompatible senses: 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow.'
Posted on March 17, 2021
Latin "forum" referred not only to a marketplace but also to a place of assembly for judicial and other business. Hence "forensic" meaning 'pertaining to the forum or courts of law.'
Posted on March 10, 2021
The German for 'to give a shot, to vaccinate' is "impf-en." "Impf-" is an exact cognate of English "imp." How can it be? This week, the Oxford Etymologist explores the language connection between vaccines, mischievous children, and Icelandic elves.
Posted on March 3, 2021
What is the origin of the name Louvre? Dictionaries and websites say unanimously that the sought-for etymology is unknown or uncertain. Perhaps so, but we will see.
Posted on February 24, 2021
Is English "skin" related to Greek "skÄnÄ"? The story of "skin" and some other words, partly synonymous with it, is worthy of attention.
Posted on February 17, 2021
I received a query from my colleague, who asked me what I think about a possible tie between "Sheela na gig" and the English word "gig." Therefore, I decided to devote a special post to it.
Posted on February 10, 2021
Impulses behind word formation never change. This statement surprised one of our readers. However, if we assume that most 'natural' words are, at least to some degree, sound-symbolic and/or sound-imitative (onomatopoeic), such monosyllabic complexes as kob, kab, keb, kub, kid, kat, and their likes must have arisen again and again in the course of language history, even if every time they were tied to different objects.
Posted on February 3, 2021
The overlap between English and French idioms is considerable. Familiar quotations from Classical Greek and Latin, to say nothing of the Bible, are taken for granted. A few idioms seem to have come from India, which is not surprising, considering how long British servicemen lived in that country. The Indian connection has rarely been discussed; yet it deserves a brief mention.
Posted on January 27, 2021
"Kid" has a few relatives outside English but in an English text it appeared only around 1200, in a poem so strongly influenced by the language of the Scandinavians that the fact of borrowing is incontestable: "kid" is an import from Danish.
Posted on January 20, 2021
The time has come to find out where cub came from. "Cub," which surfaced in English texts only in the early sixteenth century, turned out to be an aggressive creature: it ousted whelp, and later the verb "to cub" came into existence. The constant suppression of old words by upstarts is a process worth noticing.
Posted on January 13, 2021
As far as I can judge, the origin of "calf", the animal, contains relatively few riddles, and in this blog, I prefer not to repeat what can be found in solid dictionaries and on reliable websites. But there is a hitch in relation to the frolicsome calf, the lower leg. That is why I decided to give calf a chance...
Posted on January 6, 2021
Two types of hypotheses compete in etymology. One is learned and the other disconcertingly simple, so that an impartial observer is sometimes hard put to it to choose between them. English whelp resembles the verb yelp, obviously a sound-imitative word, like yap and yawp. Is it possible that such is the origin of whelp?
Posted on December 16, 2020
The first, perhaps surprising, thing about the words I'll address below is that language rarely associates the names of adult animals with the names chosen for their progeny. Yet the same is true of humans!
Posted on December 9, 2020
Why is there no 'master key' to the closet hiding the origin of language and all the oldest words? Historians deal with documents or, when no documents have been preserved, with oral tradition, which may or may not be reliable. The earliest epoch did not leave us any documents pertaining to the origin of language.
Posted on December 2, 2020
The posts for the last two weeks dealt with the various attempts to trace (or rather guess) the origin of the word bizarre, and I finished by saying that the word is, in my opinion, sound-imitative. In connection with this statement a caveat is in order...
Posted on November 25, 2020
This post continues the discussion of "bizarre." After the Basque etymology of this Romance adjective was rejected on chronological grounds, "bizarre" joined the sad crowd of 'words of unknown (disputable, uncertain, undiscovered) origin.' However, several good scholars have tried to penetrate the darkness surrounding it. Each offered his own solution, a situation, as we will see, that does not bode well.
Posted on November 18, 2020
Posted on November 11, 2020
It is better to be hanged for a sheep than for a lamb. The proverb has a medieval ring, but it was first recorded in 1678. The context is obvious: since the punishment is going to be the same (hanging), it pays off to commit a greater crime and enjoy its benefits while you are alive.
Posted on November 4, 2020
I decided to write this post, because I have an idea about the origin of the idiom baker's dozen, and ideas occur so seldom that I did not want this opportunity to be wasted. Perhaps our readers will find my suggestion reasonable or refute it. I'll be pleased to hear from them.
Posted on October 28, 2020
Harlot turned up in English texts in the thirteenth century, acquired its present-day sense ('prostitute') about two hundred years later, and ousted all the previous ones. Those 'previous ones' are worthy of recording...
Posted on October 21, 2020
Next comes harness, first recorded in English around 1300 with the sense 'baggage, equipment; trappings of a horse.' But around the same time, it could also mean 'body armor; tackle, gear,' as it still does in German (Harnisch). The route is familiar: from Old French to Middle English.
Posted on October 14, 2020
Some similes make sense: for example, as coarse as hemp (or heather). Hemp and heather are indeed coarse. But cool as a cucumber? Many phrases of this type exist thanks to alliteration. Perhaps at some time, somewhere, cucumbers were associated with coolness, but, more likely, the simile was coined as a joke: just listen to coo-coo in it!
Posted on October 7, 2020
Posted on September 30, 2020
Posted on September 23, 2020
Posted on September 16, 2020
Posted on September 9, 2020
Posted on September 2, 2020
Posted on August 26, 2020
Posted on August 19, 2020
One does not have to be a linguist to know that English is full of naval metaphors and phrases. How else could it be in the language of a seafaring nation?! Dozens, if not hundreds of metaphors going back to sailors' life and experience crop up in our daily speech, and we don't realize their origin. Nor should we, for speakers are not expected to think of the etymology of the words and collocations they use.
Posted on August 12, 2020
Thanks everybody for the questions, comments, and suggestions! The state of Spelling Reform The six most promising schemes of reformed spelling, with summaries, can be found on the Society's website (The English Spelling Society). The second (virtual) session of the International English Spelling Congress will probably take place in November. If you are interested in the fate of Spelling Reform, please register (it is free).
Posted on August 5, 2020
On April 18, 2012, while discussing the etymology of shrimp, I wrote that I had once looked up the word scrumptious, to find out its origin. Much to my surprise, I read that scrumptious is perhaps sumptuous, with -cr- added for emphasis. On May 2, 2012, I attacked shrew. My romance with shr- ~ scr-words abated, but I never forgot it. Today, I'll continue those two stories and again look at shr- and scr-.
Posted on July 29, 2020
The beginning of this story appeared a week ago, on July 15, 2020 (Cut and dried, Part 2), and we found out that the Old Germanic languages had two words for 'dry': thur-s- (from which Modern English has the noun thirst; thor-s is the Gothic form) and dreag-, the parent of dry. Seeing how concrete and unambiguous the idea of dryness is, we wondered why Germanic needed two synonyms for this word.
Posted on July 22, 2020
The murky history of the verb cut was discussed two weeks ago (June 24, 2020). Now the turn of dry has come around. When people ask questions about the origin of any word, they want to know why a certain combination of sounds means what it does. Why cut, big, den, and so forth?
Posted on July 15, 2020
Response to some comments: The verb cut. The Middle Dutch, Dutch, and Low German examples (see the post for July 1, 2020) are illuminating. Perhaps we are dealing with a coincidence, because such monosyllabic verbs are easy to coin, especially if they are in at least some way expressive.
Posted on July 8, 2020
A less common synonym of the idiom cut and dried is cut and dry, and it would have served my purpose better, because this essay is about the verb cut, and two weeks later the adjective dry will be the subject of a post. But let us stay with the better-known variant.
Posted on July 1, 2020
The word knife came up in one of the recent comments. I have spent so much time discussing sharp objects (adz, ax, and sword) that one more will fit in quite naturally. The word that interests us today turned up in late Old English (cnīf) and is usually believed to be a borrowing of Old Norse knfr (both ī and designate a long vowel, as in Modern Engl. knee)
Posted on June 24, 2020
With this post behind me, I'll finally be able to beat my sword into a workable plowshare. Today, the immediate theme is the history of the word brand and its cognates, but it is also a springboard to an important conclusion.
Posted on June 17, 2020
I promised not to return to Spelling Reform and will be true to my word. The animated discussion of a month ago (see the comments following the April gleanings) is instructive, and I'll only inform the contributors to that exchange that nothing they wrote is new. It is useful to know the history of the problem being discussed, for what is the point of shooting arrows into the air?
Posted on June 11, 2020
Last week (May 27, 2020), I discussed two attempts to solve the etymology of sword. The second of them would not have deserved so much attention if Elmar Seebold, the editor of the best-known German etymological dictionary, had not cited it as the only one possibly worthy of attention. His is a minority opinion, which does not mean it is wrong, though I believe it is.
Posted on June 3, 2020
Those who have read the posts on awl, ax(e), and adz(e) (March 11, 18, and 25, 2020) will find themselves on familiar ground: once again 'origin unknown,' numerous hypotheses, and reference to migratory words. This is not surprising: people learn the names of tools and weapons from the speakers of neighboring nations (tribes), adapt, and domesticate them. Dozens of such names have roots in the remotest prehistory.
Posted on May 27, 2020
It is amazing how often the Devil is invoked in English idioms: he has certainly been given his due. Some phrases must go back to myths. The Devil and his dam reminds us of the ancient stories in which two monsters play havoc with human lives. A famous example is Grendel and his mother (Beowulf), but folklore is full of similar examples.
Posted on May 20, 2020
The readers of newspapers will have noticed the deadening repetition of the same words (I don't mean pandemic, virus, distance, or opening'those are probably unavoidable). No, everybody nowadays hunkers down (the activity formerly reserved for the greatest leaders at their secret meetings), while many admire Sweden, where people trust their government.
Posted on May 13, 2020
I have read two comments on my post of April 29, 2020 and John Cowan's post and came to the expected conclusion: even those who favor the idea of the Reform will never agree on what should change and in what order changes should be instituted. Every suggestion makes sense.
Posted on May 6, 2020
I keep receiving letters explaining to me the futility of all efforts to reform English spelling and even extolling the virtues of the present system. I will spend minimal time while rehashing what has been said many times and come to the point as soon as possible. The seemingly weighty but not serious objections are three. 1) If we reform spelling, we'll lose a lot of historical information. Quite true, but spelling is not a springboard to an advanced course on etymology.
Posted on April 29, 2020
Would you like to be as learned as Dr. Doddipol? Those heroes of our intensifying similes! Cooter Brown (a drunk), Laurence's dog (extremely lazy), Potter's pig (bow-legged), Throp's wife (a very busy person, but so was also Beck's wife)'who were they? I have at least once written about them, though in passing (see the post for October 28, 2015). They show up in sayings like as drunk as'¦, as lazy as'¦, as busy as'¦, and so forth. Many people have tried to discover the identity of those mysterious characters.
Posted on April 22, 2020
I think I should clarify my position on the well-known similarities between and among some languages. In the comment on the March gleanings (April 1, 2020), our correspondent pointed to a work by Professor Tsung-tung Chang on the genetic relationship between Indo-European and Chinese. I have been aware of this work for a long time, but, since I am not a specialist in Chinese linguistics and do not know the language, I never mentioned my skeptical attitude toward it in print or in my lectures.
Posted on April 14, 2020
It is amazing how many words like aloof exist in English. Even for 'fear' we have two a-formations: afraid, which supplanted the archaic afeard, and aghast. Aback, aboard, ashore, asunder'a small dictionary can be filled with them (but alas and alack do not belong here). The model is productive: consider aflutter and aglitter. One feature unites those words: they cannot be used attributively. Indeed, an asunder man and an astride rider do not exist.
Posted on April 8, 2020
Should it be business as usual with the Oxford Etymologist? Closing the blog until better days will probably not benefit anybody. The terrain is like a minefield, but I'll continue gleaning.
Posted on April 1, 2020
I am picking up where I left off last week. The word adz(e) was coined long ago and surfaced more than once in Old English texts. It had several local variants, and its gender fluctuated: adesa was masculine, while adese was feminine. Also, eadesa and adusa have come down to us. Apparently, the tool had wide currency.
Posted on March 25, 2020
Wherever we look for the history of the names of instruments and tools, we confront a similar problem: the available material is either too copious or too scanty. Last week (March 11, 2020), we followed a hectic but inefficient hunt for the etymology of the word awl, and I promised a continuation: a post on adz (spelled as adze in British English).
Posted on March 18, 2020
Posted on March 11, 2020
The use of metaphors is relatively late in the modern European languages; it is, in principle, a post-Renaissance phenomenon. The same holds for the idioms based on metaphors. No one in the days of Beowulf and perhaps even of Chaucer would have coined the phrase to lose one's marbles 'to become insane,' even if so long ago boys were as intent on collecting marbles as was Tom Sawyer.
Posted on September 4, 2019
As is known, glamour is a spelling variant of glamor even in American English. The question I received was about the connection between glamour and grammar. The word glamour appeared in printed books only in the 18th century. Â It occurred in Scottish ballads and meant 'magic, enchantment.'
Posted on August 28, 2019
This is a continuation of the subject broached cautiously on July 17, 2019. Since the comments were supportive, I'll continue in the same vein. Perhaps it should first be mentioned that sometimes the line separating language study from the study of history, customs, and rituals is thin.
Posted on August 7, 2019
As always, many thanks to those who left comments and to those who sent me emails and asked questions. Rather long ago, I wrote four posts on the etymology and use of the word brown (see the posts for September 24, October 1, October 15, and October 22, 2014). The origin of the animal name beaver was mentioned in them too. Here I'll say what I know about the subject.
Posted on July 31, 2019
We read that Helgi, one of the greatest heroes of Old Norse poetry, sneaked, disguised as a bondmaid, into the palace of his father's murderer and applied himself to a grindstone, but so bright or piercing were his eyes (a telltale sign of noble birth, according to the views of the medieval Scandinavians) that even a man called Blind (!) became suspicious.
Posted on July 24, 2019
Idioms, especially if we add proverbs and familiar quotations to them, are a shoreless ocean. Especially numerous are so-called gnomic sayings (aphorisms) like make hay while the sun shines, better safe than sorry, and a friend in need is a friend indeed. Their age is usually hard or even impossible to determine. Since most of them reflect people's universal experience, they may be very old.
Posted on July 17, 2019
Three years ago, I discussed the origin of several kl' formations, all of which were sound-symbolic: kl- appeared to suggest cleaving, cluttering, and the like. In this context, especially revealing is the etymology of cloth. The problem with such consonant groups is that there is rarely anything intrinsically symbolic in them.
Posted on July 10, 2019
Like every journalist (and a blogger is a journalist of sorts), I have an archive. Sometimes I look through the discarded clippings and handwritten notes and find them too good to throw away. Below, I'll reproduce a few rescued tidbits.
Posted on July 3, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on June 26, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on June 19, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on June 12, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on June 5, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on May 29, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on May 22, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on May 15, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on May 8, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on May 1, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on April 24, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on April 17, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on April 10, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on April 3, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on March 27, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on March 20, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on March 13, 2019
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I'll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Posted on March 6, 2019
There is no reason why we should not continue our journey and go to Coventry, a town in Warwickshire, 94 miles away from London. The name was widely known to those who lived through World War II because of the devastating bombing raid on Coventry in November 1940.
Posted on February 27, 2019
When one reads the obsolete phrase go to, go to, the meaning is still understood quite well. After to, one 'hears' the word hell. However, directions vary, and the origin of the idioms beginning with go to is less trivial than it may seem.
Posted on February 20, 2019
It is hard to believe how recent the verb hike is. Slightly more than a hundred years ago, The Century Dictionary (CD) found a slot for hike only in the supplement.
Posted on February 13, 2019
In December and January, the ground, as we know from the poem about two quarrelling little kittens, was covered with frost and snow, so that there has not been too much for me to glean, but a few crumbs were worth picking up.
Posted on February 6, 2019
What else is there to say about robin? Should I mention the fact that 'two Robin Redbreasts built their nest within a hollow tree' and raised a family there?
Posted on January 30, 2019
Some syllables seem to do more work than they should. For example, if you look up cob and its phonetic variants (cab ~ cub) in English dictionaries, you will find references to all kinds of big and stout things, round masses (lumps), and 'head/top.'
Posted on January 23, 2019
In Surrey (a county bordering London), and not only there, people used to say: 'The robin and the wren are God's cock and hen' (as though the wren were the female of the robin, but then the wren is indeed Jenny). In Wales, the wren is also considered sacred.
Posted on January 16, 2019
'Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake scuffled down from the bank and said: 'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather ulster'(and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson'.
Posted on January 9, 2019
Having sown my wild oats (see the post for December 12, 2018), I can now afford the luxury of looking at the origin of the word oat. It would be unfair to introduce the holiday season by discussing a word of unknown etymology. A Christmas carol needs a happy end, and indeed I have something reassuring to say.
Posted on December 19, 2018
For many years I have been studying not only the derivation and history of words but also the origin of idioms. No Indo-European forms there, no incompatible vowels, not consonant shifts, but the problems are equally tough.
Posted on December 12, 2018
Posted on December 5, 2018
In the long history of this blog, I have rarely touched on the origin of plant names, but there have been posts on mistletoe (December 20, 2006) and ivy (January 11, 2017). Some time ago, a letter came with a question about the etymology of gorse, and I expect to devote some space to this plant name and its two synonyms.
Posted on November 28, 2018
In the long history of this blog, I have rarely touched on the origin of plant names, but there have been posts on mistletoe (December 20, 2006) and ivy (January 11, 2017). Some time ago, a letter came with a question about the etymology of gorse, and I expect to devote some space to this plant name and its two synonyms.
Posted on November 21, 2018
This post returns to loaf, noun, which, incidentally, has nothing to do with loaf, verb (but see the picture)! Since loaf, from hlaif-, appears to be a more ancient word for 'bread' (as noted in the posts for October 17 and October 24), people must have coined bread, to designate the product that was different from the old one.
Posted on November 7, 2018
I have received a letter with a query about whether kibosh might be a borrowing from Hebrew. Both the Hebrew and the Yiddish hypotheses on kibosh are discussed in detail in the book by Gerald Cohen, Stephen Goranson, and Matthew Little on this intractable word (Routledge, 2018).
Posted on October 31, 2018
Bread may not be a very old word, but it is old enough, and, whatever its age, its origin has not been discovered. However, the harder the riddle, the more interesting it is to try to solve it. Even if the answer evades us, it does not follow that we have learned nothing along the way.
Posted on October 24, 2018
Posted on October 17, 2018
So where did the word bride come from? Granted, the initial meaning of bride is not entirely clear, but neither is it hopelessly opaque. Whatever the interpretation, the bride has always been a woman who will soon become a wife, and the mystery surrounding the sought-after etymology comes as a surprise, regardless of whether the initial sense of the noun was 'the woman to be married,' 'the woman after the consummation of the marriage rite,' or even 'daughter-in-law' ~ 'a new female member of the adopting family.'
Posted on October 10, 2018
Many thanks to those who have commented on the recent posts and written me privately. My expertise is in Germanic, with occasional timid inroads into the rest of Indo-European. Therefore, I cannot answer questions about Arabic and Chinese. Below, I'll say something about Hittite, but, obviously, for my information I depend on the authority of others.
Posted on October 3, 2018
The blog named 'The Oxford Etymologist,' which started on March 1, 2008, and which appears every Wednesday, rain or shine (this is Post no. 663), owes many of its topics to association. Some time ago, I wrote about the puzzling Gothic verb liugan 'to lie, tell falsehoods' and 'to marry' (August 15, 2018) and about the etymology of the English verb bless (October 12, 2016).
Posted on September 26, 2018
Not too long ago (12 October 2016), I wrote a post about the etymology of the verb bless and decided that my next topic would be blood, because bless and blood meet, even if in an obscure way. But more pressing business'the origin of liver (21 March 2018) and kidney (11 April 2018)'prevented me from meeting that self-imposed deadline. Today, Dracula-like, I am ready to tackle blood.
Posted on September 19, 2018
Of course is such a trivial phrase that few, I am afraid, will be interested in its history. And yet, what can be stranger than the shape of this most common two-word group?
Posted on September 12, 2018
To find out how you pay your dues, you have to read the whole post. It would be silly to begin with the culmination. The story will be about phonetics and table talk (first about phonetics).
Posted on September 5, 2018
In a jiffy: Stephen Goranson has offered several citations of this idiom (it means 'in a trice'), possibly pointing to its origin in sailor slang. English is full of phrases that go back to the language of sailors, some of which, like tell it to the marines, by and large, and the cut of one's jib (to cite a few), are well-known.
Posted on August 29, 2018
As a matter of fact, it is a long story, because the distant origin of hate'the word, not the feeling'is far from clear. As usual, we should try to determine the earliest meaning of our word (for it may be different from the one we know) and search for the cognates in and outside Germanic. At the beginning of the month (see the post for 1 August 2018), a good deal was said about the Gothic language.
Posted on August 22, 2018
In 1882, Mark Twain gave a short speech titled 'On the Decay of the Art of Lying,' not his best or wittiest. I assume that Oscar Wilde did not miss the published text of that speech, for seven years later, he brought out  a kind of treatise in the form of a dialogue with a similar title, namely, 'The Decay of Lying'An Observation,' one of his most powerful and brilliant (as always, too brilliant) essays. Â
Posted on August 15, 2018
It would be unwise to leave the topic of emotions (see the posts on anger, dread, and fear), without saying something about hate and hatred. Although hate refers to intense dislike, it is curious to observe how diluted the word has become: today we can hate orange juice, a noisy neighbor, even our own close relative, and of course we hate not finding the objects we have mislaid. For some reason, to dislike, have little regard for, and resent are not enough for expressing our dissatisfaction.
Posted on August 8, 2018
Work on a project for reformed spelling is underway (under way). Three comments and letters have come to my notice. Masha Bell called our attention to useful and useless double letters. No doubt, account and arrive do not need their cc and rr, and I am all for abolishing them. I won't live long enough to see acquire spelled as akwire, but perhaps aquire will satisfy future generations?
Posted on August 1, 2018
There is a feeling that idioms resist interference. A red herring cannot change its color any more than the leopard can change its spots. And yet variation here is common. For instance, talk a blue streak coexists with swear (curse) a blue streak. One even finds to swear like blue blazes (only the color remains intact). A drop in the bucket means the same as a drop in the ocean. We can cut something to bits or to pieces, and so forth.
Posted on July 25, 2018
There will be no revelations below. I owe all I have to say to my database and especially to the papers by Ian F. Hancock (1979) and Dingxu Shi (1992). But surprisingly, my folders contain an opinion that even those two most knowledgeable researchers have missed, and I'll mention it below for what it is worth. Several important dictionaries tell us that pidgin is a 'corruption' of Engl. business, and I am not in a position to confirm or question their opinion.
Posted on July 18, 2018
My discussion of idioms does not rest on a solid foundation. In examining the etymology of a word, I can rely on the evidence of numerous dictionaries and on my rich database. The linguists interested in the origin of idiomatic phrases wade through a swamp. My database of such phrases is rather rich, but the notes I have amassed are usually 'opinions,' whose value is hard to assess. Sometimes the origin of a word is at stake.
Posted on July 11, 2018
The post on pilgarlic appeared on 13Â June 2018. I knew nothing of the story mentioned in the comment by Stephen Goranson, but he always manages to discover the sources of which I am unaware. The existence of Pilgarlic River adds, as serious people might say, a new dimension to the whole business of pilgarlic. Who named the river? Is the hydronym fictitious? If so, what was the impulse behind the coinage? If genuine, how old is it, and why so called? What happened in 1883 that aroused people's interest in that seemingly useless word?
Posted on July 4, 2018
Fear is a basic emotion in all living creatures, because it makes them recognize and avoid danger. It is therefore no wonder that so many words for it have been coined. Language can describe fear by registering the physical reaction to it, for instance, shaking and trembling (quite a few words for 'fear' in the Indo-European languages belong here) or trying to flee from the source of danger, as in Greek phob³s, known from the suffix -phobe and all kinds of phobias (ph©bomai 'I fear; I flee from'; its Russian cognate beg- designates only 'running').
Posted on June 27, 2018
It is well-known that words for abstract concepts at one time designated concrete things or actions. 'Love,' 'hatred,' 'fear,' and the rest developed from much more tangible notions. Â The words anger, anguish, and anxious provide convincing examples of this trend. All three are borrowings in English: the first from Scandinavian, the second from French, and the third from Latin. In Old Norse (that is, in Old Icelandic), angr and angra meant 'to grieve' and 'grief' respectively.
Posted on June 20, 2018
The word pilgarlic (or pilgarlik and pilgarlick) may not be worthy of a post, but a hundred and fifty years ago and some time later, people discussed it with great interest and dug up so many curious examples of its use that only the OED has more. (Just how many citations the archive of the OED contains we have no way of knowing, for the printed text includes only a small portion of the examples James A. H. Murray and his successors received.) There is not much to add to what is known about the origin of this odd word, but I have my own etymology of the curious word and am eager to publicize it.
Posted on June 13, 2018
With one exception, I'll take care of the most recent comments in due time. For today I have two items from the merry month of May. The exception concerns Italian becco 'cuckold.' I don't think the association is with the word for 'beak; nose.' Becco 'cuckold' is probably from becco 'male goat.' If so, the reference must be to the horns, as discussed in the previous post.
Posted on June 6, 2018
Still with the herd: Man, as they say, is a gregarious animal, and wearing horns could become the male of our species, but etymology sometimes makes unpredictable leaps. I of course knew that Italian becco means 'cuckold' (the image is the same in all or most of the Romance languages, and not only in them), but would not have addressed this sensitive subject, had a comment on becco not served as a provocation. So here are some notes on cuckoldry from a linguistic point of view.
Posted on May 30, 2018
Etymology is a peaceful area of study. But read the following: 'Spick and Span.'These words have been sadly tortured by our etymologists'we shall, therefore, do our best to deliver them from further persecution. Tooke is here more than usually abusive of his predecessors; however, Nemesis, always on the watch, has permitted him to give a lumbering, half Dutch, half German, etymology; of 'shining new from the warehouse''as if such simple colloquial terms were formed in this clumsy round-about way.
Posted on May 23, 2018
A story that keeps recycling the same episodes tends to become boring. So today I'll say goodbye to my horned friends, though there is so much left that is of interest. In dealing with cows, bulls, bucks, and the rest, an etymologist is constantly made to choose among three possibilities: an ancient root with a transparent etymology (a rare case), a migratory word, or a sound-imitative formation. Like cattle breeders, words are nomads, but some are more sedentary than the others.
Posted on May 16, 2018
The buck stops nowhere: it has conquered nearly all of Eurasia. The Modern English word refers to the stag. At one time, it was a synonym of he-goat, or Billy goat. But Old Engl. buc 'stag' seems to have coexisted with bucca 'Billy goat.' Perhaps later they merged. German Bock is a rather general designation of 'male animal,' such as 'ram' (or 'wether'; wether is a nearly forgotten word, though still recognizable in bellwether), 'stag,' and others; it is a common second element of compounds like Schafbock (Schaf 'sheep').
Posted on May 9, 2018
When people began to domesticate the cow, what could or would they have called the animal? Ideally, a moo. This is what children do when they, Adam-like, begin to invent names for the objects around them. However, the Old English for 'cow' was cū, that is, coo, if we write it the modern way, not mū. Obviously, cows don't say coo. Pigeons do. Therefore, we are obliged to treat this word in the traditional way, that is, to look for the cognates, reconstruct the most ancient form, and so on.
Posted on May 2, 2018
Part 1: A Turning Point in the History of Spelling Reform? On 30 May 2018 the long-awaited International Spelling Congress will have its first online meeting. 'The Congress is intended to produce a consensus on an acceptable alternative to our current unpredictable spelling system. The goal is an alternative which maximizes improved access to literacy but at the same time avoids unnecessary change.
Posted on April 25, 2018
As long as there were no towns, people did not need the word street. Yet in our oldest Germanic texts, streets are mentioned. It is no wonder that we are not sure what exactly was meant and where the relevant words came from. Quite obviously, if a word's meaning is unknown, its derivation will also remain unknown. Paths existed, and so did roads. Surprisingly, the etymology of both words (path and road) is debatable.
Posted on April 18, 2018
It is perfectly all right if your answer to the question in the title is 'no.' I am not partial. It was not my intention to continue with the origin of organs, but I received a question about the etymology of kidney and decided to answer it, though, as happened with liver (see the post for 21 March 2018), I have no original ideas on this subject.
Posted on April 11, 2018
Thanks to all of our readers who have commented on the previous posts and who have written me privately. Some remarks do not need my answer. This is especially true of the suggestions concerning parallels in the languages I don't know or those that I can read but have never studied professionally. Like every etymologist, I am obliged to cite words and forms borrowed from dictionaries, and in many cases depend on the opinions I cannot check.
Posted on April 4, 2018
One of the questions I received was about dent, indent, and indenture. What do they have in common with dent- 'tooth,' as in dental and dentures? Dent, which surfaced in texts in the 13th century, meant 'stroke, blow' (a noun; obviously, not a derivative of any Latin word for 'tooth') and has plausibly been explained as a variant of its full synonym or doublet dint.
Posted on March 28, 2018
Etymological bodybuilding is a never-ceasing process. The important thing is to know when to stop, and I'll stop soon, but a few more exercises may be worth the trouble. Today's post is about liver. What little can be said about this word has been said many times, so that an overview is all we'll need. First, as usual, a prologue or, if you prefer, a posy of the ring.
Posted on March 21, 2018
To an etymologist the names of some organs and body parts pose almost insoluble problems. A quick look at some of them may be of interest to our readers. I think that in the past, I have discussed only the words brain and body (21 February 2007: brain; 14 October 2015: body). Both etymologies are hard, for the words are local: brain has a rather inconspicuous German cognate, and the same holds for body. I risked offering tentative suggestions, which were followed by useful, partly critical comments. As usual, I see no reason to repeat what I said in the past and would like to stress only one idea. Etymologists, when at a loss for a solution, often say that the inscrutable word could enter Indo-European or Germanic, or Romance from some unknown, unrecorded language (such languages are called substrates).
Posted on March 14, 2018
So long, a formula at parting ('good-bye') is still in use, unlike mad hatter and sleeveless errand, the subjects of my recent posts, and people sometimes wonder where it came from. I have little of substance to say about the formula's origin, but, before I say it, I would like to make the point I have made so many times before.
Posted on March 7, 2018
Everybody's path to etymology: From time to time I receive questions about etymology as a profession. Not long ago, someone from a faraway country even expressed the wish to get a degree in etymology. I can refer to my post of April 2, 2014. This month, a correspondent asked me to say something about why I became an etymologist. The history of my career cannot be interesting to too many of our readers, so I'll be brief and rather tell a story.
Posted on February 28, 2018
My database on please the pigs is poor, but, since a question about it has been asked by an old and faithful correspondent, I'll say about it what I can. Perhaps our readers will be able to contribute something to the sought-for etymology. When a word turns out to be of undisclosed or hopelessly obscure origin, we take the result more or less in stride, but it comes to many as a surprise to hear that the circumstances surrounding the emergence of an idiom are beyond reconstruction.
Posted on February 21, 2018
The most ancient roots: The question concerned the root rÅ- that is said to underlie the English words oar and row. Where did the root come from? This question is almost equal to the more basic one, namely: 'How did human language come into being?' The concept of the root is ambiguous. When we deal with living languages, we compare words like work, works, worked, rework, worker, and the rest and call their common part their root.
Posted on February 14, 2018
Odds and ends: I am delighted to say that in January I received unusually many questions. When this blog came into existence, the idea was that I would be flooded by 'notes and queries,' as happens to word columnists who work for newspapers. That is why the last week of every month was reserved for answers. But all these years the traffic has been modest, and sometimes my replies were limited to what I had read in the comments. January and the beginning of February 2018 have been an exception; hence the extended 'gleanings.'
Posted on February 7, 2018
My most recent post (mad as a hatter) aroused a good deal of criticism. The reason is clear: I did not mention the hypothesis favored in the OED (mercury poisoning). Of course, when I quoted the medical explanation of long ago, I should have written the last set of hypotheses'¦ instead of the last hypothesis. I find all medical explanations of the idiom untenable, and I should have been explicit on this point, rather than hiding behind polite silence.
Posted on January 31, 2018
Posted on January 24, 2018
Not too long ago, one of our constant correspondents proposed the etymology of Greek koup 'oar.' I do not know the origin of that word and will probably never know. Koup did not show up in my most detailed dictionary of Classical Greek, and I suspect that we are dealing with a relative late coinage. By way of compensation, I decided to write something about the origin of Engl. oar and about some other words connected with it.
Posted on January 17, 2018
From time to time I receive questions too long for my monthly gleanings. The same happened last week. A reader wanted to know the origin of the eena, meena (or eenie, meenie) rhyme. Although not much can be said with certainty about this matter, a few facts have been established. The Internet devotes a lot of space to this 'jingle.'
Posted on January 10, 2018
I seldom, if ever, try to be 'topical' (I mean the practice of word columnists to keep abreast of the times and discuss the words of the year or comment on some curious expression used by a famous personality), but the calendar has some power over me. The end of the year, the beginning of the year, the rite of spring, the harvest'those do not leave me indifferent.
Posted on January 3, 2018
At the end of December, it is natural to look back at the year almost spent. Modern etymology is a slow-moving coach, and great events seldom happen in it. As far as I know, no new etymological dictionaries have appeared in 2017, but one new book has. It deals with the word kibosh, and I celebrated its appearance in the November 'Gleanings.'
Posted on December 27, 2017
Many things are new. The vocabulary of the Germanic languages shows its great potential when new objects have to be described. Even to characterize people wearing shiningly new clothes English has a picturesque phrase, namely, he/she has come (or stepped) out of the bandbox.
Posted on December 20, 2017
This post is in answer to a correspondent's query. What I can say about the etymology of job, even if condensed, would be too long for my usual 'gleanings.' More important, in my opinion, the common statement in dictionaries that the origin of job is unknown needs modification. What we 'know' about job is sufficient for endorsing the artless conclusions drawn long ago. It would of course be nice to get additional evidence, but there is probably no need to search for it and no hope to dig it up.
Posted on December 13, 2017
See the previous posts with the same title. We are approaching the end of the drama. It will be a thriller without a denouement, a tragedy without catharsis, but such are most etymological dramas. Putting the kibosh on the origin of a hard word or phrase is an almost impossible endeavor. Heraldry for etymologists and a note on unlikely candidates - It has been said, and for good reason, that, whenever people played cards, every man whose unpopularity made him hated by the people and bearing as arms nine lozenges could be referred to as the curse of Scotland.
Posted on December 6, 2017
A time-consuming kibosh - Long ago (19 May 2010), I wrote a post on the origin of the mysterious word kibosh, part of the idiom to put the kibosh on 'to put an end to something.' The discussion that followed made me return to this subject in 28 July 2010, and again three years later (14 August 2013). Since that time, the word has been at the center of attention of several researchers, and last month a book titled Origin of Kibosh by Gerald Cohen, Stephen Goranson, and Matthew Little appeared (Routledge Studies in Etymology.
Posted on November 29, 2017
Battles, butchers, and tyrants - CULLODEN. The battle of Culloden took place on 16 April 1746 between the forces of the Catholic 'Young Pretender' Charles Edward Stuart, who was at the head of the Jacobites, and those of the government, led by Prince William, the Duke of Cumberland.
Posted on November 22, 2017
The origin of this mysterious phrase, "nine of diamonds," has been discussed for over two hundred years. Nor are surveys wanting. I cannot say anything on this subject the world does not know, and I have no serious preferences for any of the relatively promising hypotheses.
Posted on November 15, 2017
I have never heard anyone use the idiom to go woolgathering, but it occurs in older books with some regularity, and that's why I know it. To go woolgathering means 'to indulge in aimless thought, day dreaming, or fruitless pursuit.' Sometimes only absent-mindedness is implied.
Posted on November 8, 2017
There is a good word aftermath. Aftercrop is also fine, though rare, but, to my regret, afterglean does not exist (in aftermath, math- is related to mow, and -th is a suffix, as in length, breadth, and warmth). Anyway, I sometimes receive letters bypassing OUP's official address. They deal with etymology and usage.
Posted on November 1, 2017
Singular versus plural. What feel(s) like failed relationships'¦. The dilemma is as old as the hills: English speakers have always felt uncertain about the number after what. An exemplary treatment of this problem will be found in the old editions of H. W. Fowler's Modern English Usage (the entry what 2).
Posted on October 25, 2017
I keep returning to my sheep and rams because the subject is so rich in linguistic wool. Last time (see the post for 11 October 2017), I looked at the numerous etymological attacks on sheep and came to rather uninspiring results.
Posted on October 18, 2017
This is a sequel to the previous post of 4 October 2017. Last time I mentioned an embarrassment of riches in dealing with the origin of the word sheep, and I thought it might not be improper to share those riches with the public.
Posted on October 11, 2017
Animal names are so many and so various that thick books have been written about their origins, and yet some of the main riddles have never been solved.
Posted on October 4, 2017
Posted on September 27, 2017
Posted on September 20, 2017
In the Indo-European languages, most words for 'mother,' 'father,' 'son,' and 'daughter' are very old'most (rather than all), because some have been replaced by their rivals. Thus, Latin filia 'daughter' is the feminine of filius 'son,' and filius has nothing to do with son, which is indeed ancient.
Posted on September 13, 2017
Bogus, tantrum, and dander are fairly recent additions to the vocabulary of English. Like so many newcomers, they are words of unknown etymology. My greatest ambition is to promote their status from 'unknown' to 'uncertain.'
Posted on September 6, 2017
Dark. I am sorry for the unavoidable pun, but the origin of most adjectives for 'dark' is obscure. This is what etymological dictionaries of German tell us about dunkel and finster.
Posted on August 30, 2017
I do not know the etymology of fake, and no one knows, but, since the phrase fake news is in everybody's mouth, I am constantly asked where the word fake came from. I'll now say what I can about this subject, in order to be able to refer to this post in the future and from now on live in peace.
Posted on August 23, 2017
For decades the English-speaking world has been wondering where the word nerd came from. The Internet is full of excellent essays: the documentation is complete, and all the known hypotheses have been considered, refuted, or cautiously endorsed. I believe one of the proposed etymologies to be convincing (go on reading!), but first let me say something about nut.
Posted on August 16, 2017
Last week, we looked at the history of the conjunction if, and it turned out that the Dutch for if is of. The fateful question asked 'at dawn,' when 'Scheherazade' had to stop her tale, was: 'Are English if and of related?'
Posted on August 9, 2017
The post of 21 June 2017 on the 'dwarfs of our vocabulary' was received so well that I decided to return to them in the hope that the continuation will not disappoint our readers. Those dwarfs have a long history and have been the object of several tall tales.
Posted on August 2, 2017
First of all, I would like to thank our readers for their good wishes in connection with the 600th issue of The Oxford Etymologist, for their comments, and suggestions. In more than ten years, I must have gone a-gleaning about 120 times.
Posted on July 26, 2017
Like the history of some other words denoting numbers, the history of hundred is full of sticks and stones. To begin with, we notice that hundred, like dozen, thousand, million, and billion, is a noun rather than a numeral and requires an article (compare six people versus a hundred people); it also has a regular plural (a numeral, to have the plural form, has to be turned into a noun, or substantivized, as in twos and threes, at sixes and sevens, on all fours, and the like).
Posted on July 19, 2017
The reason for such a strange topic will become clear right away. The present post is No. 600 in the career of 'The Oxford Etymologist.' I wrote my first essay in early March 2006 and since that time have not missed a single Wednesday.
Posted on July 12, 2017
No one likes boasters. People are expected to be modest (especially when they have nothing to show). For that reason, the verbs meaning 'to boast' are usually 'low' or slangy (disparaging) and give etymologists grief and sufficient reason to be modest.
Posted on July 6, 2017
The scourge of the Middle Ages was leprosy. No other disease filled people with equal dread. The words designating this disease vary. Greek l©prÄ is a substantivized feminine adjective (that is, an adjective turned into a noun'a common process: compare Engl. the blind and blinds, with two ways of substantivization).
Posted on June 28, 2017
I receive all kinds of questions about etymology. Unless they are responses to my posts, they usually concern slang and exotic words. No one seems to care about and, as, at, for, and their likes. Conjunctions and prepositions are taken for granted, even though their origin is sometimes obscure and their history full of meaning.
Posted on June 21, 2017
John Cowan pointed out that queer 'quaint, odd' can be and is still used today despite its latest (predominant) sense. Yes, I know. Quite intentionally, I sometimes use the phrase queer smile. It usually arouses a few embarrassed grins. My students assume that a man in the winter of his days is so un-cool that he does not know what this adjective now means.
Posted on June 14, 2017
In 1708, London witnessed the appearance of The British Apollo, or Curious Amusements for the INGENIOUS. To which are Added the most Material Occurrences Foreign and Domestick. Perform'd by a Society of GENTLEMEN. VOL. I. Printed for the Authors, by F. Mayo, at the Printing-Press, against Water-Lane in Fleet-Street.
Posted on June 7, 2017
I am picking up where I left off last week. At first sight, nothing could be more straightforward than the adjective still. It has always meant 'fixed, not moving.' We sit still, come to a standstill, and enjoy still lifes (that is, pictures of living things in a state of rest).
Posted on May 31, 2017
From time to time, various organizations invite me to speak about the history of words. The main question I hear is why words change their meaning. Obviously, I have nothing new to say on this subject, for there is a chapter on semantic change in countless books, both popular and special.
Posted on May 24, 2017
To keep somebody or something at bay means 'to keep a dangerous opponent at a distance; to hold off, ward off a disaster, etc.' The very first interpreters of this idiom guessed its origin correctly. They stated that bay here means 'to bark' and that at bay refers to hunting.
Posted on May 17, 2017
The previous post on Nostratic linguistics was also part of the 'gleanings,' because the inspiration for it came from a query, but a few more tidbits have to be taken care of before summer sets in.
Posted on May 10, 2017
The colleague who wrote me a letter is a specialist in Turkic and a proponent of Nostratic linguistics. He mentioned the Turkic root syn-, which, according to him, can mean 'to test, prove; compete; prophesy; observe; body, image, outward appearance,' and wondered whether, within the framework of Nostratic linguistics, this root can be compared with the root of Engl. sin.
Posted on May 3, 2017
The phrase is outdated, rare, even moribund. Those who use it do so to amuse themselves or to parade their antiquarian tastes. However, it is not quite dead, for it sometimes occurs in books published at the end of the nineteenth century.
Posted on April 26, 2017
Today I am beginning where I left off last week. As we have seen, Old Icelandic sannr meant both 'true' and 'guilty.' Also, the root of this word can be detected in the word for 'being' (Latin sunt, etc.).
Posted on April 19, 2017
This blog was launched on 1 March 2006, four or even five editors ago (to paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut's statement about his wives), and is now in the twelfth year of its existence. It has been appearing every Wednesday since that date, and today's number is 587.
Posted on April 12, 2017
In a way, this is the continuation of the previous week's gleanings, because I owe today's subject to a question from a student of Old English. Although I cannot say anything new about carouse, the story is mildly instructive.
Posted on April 5, 2017
Many thanks for the comments. One of the questions was about the dialect that could be used for the foundation of a new norm. No spelling can reflect the pronunciation of all English speakers.
Posted on March 29, 2017
We are so used to the horrors of English spelling that experience no inconvenience at reading the word knowhow. Why don't know and how rhyme if they look so similar? Because such is life.
Posted on March 22, 2017
Yes, there is every reason to bother. Read the following: 'One of the most common expressions in everyday life, and one which is generally used by all classes, is the expression 'Don't bother me!' and the origin of the word bother has so frequently bothered me that I have spent some time in tracing its etymology.
Posted on March 15, 2017
Why Tom, Dick, and Harry? Generic names? If so, why just those? From Suffolk to Yorkshire people speak about some Laurence and some Lumley, whose fame rests only on the fact that both have alliterating lazy dogs (as lazy as L.'s dog, as laid him down to bark). Other farmers had worse luck.
Posted on March 8, 2017
From time to time people share with me their versions of Spelling Reform. I rarely respond to such letters, because, unfortunately, I have little to say. The problem, as I see it, is not the ideal version of the reform but the reality of its implementation. The choir is happy, and we keep preaching to it.
Posted on March 1, 2017
One good thing about English spelling is that, when you look for some oddity in it, you don't have to search long. So why do we have the letter u in boulder (and of course in Boulder, the name of a town in Colorado)? If my information is reliable, Boulder was called after Boulder Creek.
Posted on February 22, 2017
Unlike Alice, who was advised to begin at the beginning and stop only when she came to an end, I'd rather begin at the end. The English-speaking world is interested in the Cheshire cat only because Lewis Carroll mentioned it. The origin of the proverbial grin has never been explained, so that, if you hope to receive an enlightening answer from this post, you can very well stop here.
Posted on February 15, 2017
James Murray showed great caution in his discussion of the Modern English words spelled and pronounced as brash (see Part I of this essay). It remains unclear how many of them are related. One of the homonyms seems to go back to French, but even that word is of Germanic origin.
Posted on February 8, 2017
One of the queries I received was about the words dimple, dump, dumps, and a few others sounding like them. This is a most confusing group, the main reason being the words' late attestation (usually Middle and Early Modern English). Where had they been before they came to the surface? Nowhere or just in 'oral tradition'? Sometimes an association emerges, but it never goes too far.
Posted on February 1, 2017
Lat week, I discussed the hardships endured by an etymologist who decides to investigate the origin of English br- words, and promised to use that post as an introduction to the story of brash. Today, I'll try to make good on part of my promise.
Posted on January 25, 2017
Two weeks ago, I promised to deal with the word brash, but, before doing so, I would like to make it clear that we are approaching a minefield. Few people, except for professional etymologists, think of words in terms of phonetic or semantic groups.
Posted on January 18, 2017
Last week's post was about the proverb: 'Good wine needs no bush,' and something was said about ivy as an antidote to good and bad wine. So now it may not be entirely out of place to discuss the origin of the word ivy, even though I have an entry on it my dictionary.
Posted on January 11, 2017
A Happy New Year! It has arrived, in full accordance with The Oxford Etymologist's bold promise. Once upon a time, the ability to see into the future was called second sight (clairvoyance is too bookish).
Posted on January 4, 2017
The New Year is looming! I can write a most edifying post about 2017, or rather about what happened a hundred years ago, in 1917, but this is an etymological blog, so I, a hard-working cobbler, will stick to my last.
Posted on December 28, 2016
When we deal with old languages, Jacob Grimm's rule works rather well. He suggested that homonyms are usually related words whose meanings had diverged too far for us to recognize their original unity.
Posted on December 21, 2016
That words travel from land to land is no secret. I do not only mean the trivial borrowings of the type known so well from the history of English. For instance, more than a thousand years ago, the Vikings settled in most of Britain, and therefore English is full of Scandinavian words.
Posted on December 14, 2016
The true people of the mist are not the tribesman of Haggard's celebrated novel but students of etymology. They spend their whole lives in the mist (or in the fog) and have little hope to see the sun.
Posted on December 7, 2016
I keep receiving this question with some regularity (once a year or so), and, since I have answered it several times, I'll confine myself to a few very general remarks. Etymology is a branch of historical linguistics dealing with the origin of words. It looks at the sound shape and meaning of words and at the cultural milieu in which words were coined. Quite often a word has related forms in several languages, and all of them have to be compared.
Posted on November 30, 2016
The strange exclamation in the title means 'Fiddlesticks! Humbug! Nonsense!' Many people will recognize the phrase (for, among others, Dickens and Agatha Christie used it), but today hardly anyone requires Betty Martin's help for giving vent to indignant amazement. However, the Internet is abuzz with questions about the origin of the idiom, guarded explanations, and readers' comments.
Posted on November 23, 2016
This is a postscript to last week's post on fog. To get my point across, as they say, let me begin with a few short remarks on word origins, according to the picture emerging from our best dictionaries.
Posted on November 16, 2016
'Fog everywhere. Fog up the river,'¦ Fog down the river'¦.' This is Dickens (1852). But in 1889 Oscar Wilde insisted that the fogs had appeared in London only when the Impressionists discovered them, that is, they may have been around for centuries, but only thanks to the Impressionists, London experienced a dramatic change in its climate.
Posted on November 9, 2016
The verb curse, as already noted, occurred in Old English, but it has no cognates in other Germanic languages and lacks an obvious etymon. The same, of course, holds for the noun curse. The OED keeps saying that the origin of curse is unknown.
Posted on November 2, 2016
Mr. Madhukar Gogate, a retired engineer from India, has written me several times, and I want to comment on some of his observations. He notes that there is no interest in the reform in Great Britain and the United States. I have to agree.
Posted on October 26, 2016
Curse is a much more complicated concept than blessing, because there are numerous ways to wish someone bad luck. Oral tradition ('folklore') has retained countless examples of imprecations. Someone might want a neighbor's cow to stop giving milk or another neighbor's wife to become barren.
Posted on October 19, 2016
Strangely, both bless and curse are rather hard etymological riddles, though bless seems to pose less trouble, which makes sense: words live up to their meaning and history, and bless, as everybody will agree, has more pleasant connotations than curse.
Posted on October 12, 2016
As usual, let me offer my non-formulaic, sincere thanks for the comments, additions, questions, and corrections. I have a theory that misspellings are the product of sorcery, as happened in my post on the idiom catch a crab (in rowing). According to the routine of many years, I proofread my texts with utmost care.
Posted on October 5, 2016
Caution is a virtue, but, like every other virtue, it can be practiced with excessive zeal and become a vice (like parsimony turning into stinginess). The negative extreme of caution is cowardice.
Posted on September 28, 2016
Last week some space was devoted to the crawling, scratching crab, so that perhaps enlarging on the topic 'Crab in Idioms' may not be quite out of place. The plural in the previous sentence is an overstatement, for I have only one idiom in view. The rest is not worthy of mention: no certain meaning and no explanation. But my database is omnivorous and absorbs a lot of rubbish. Bibliographers cannot be choosers.
Posted on September 21, 2016
My travel through the English kr-words began with the verb creep, for I have for a long time tried to solve its mystery. On the face of it, there is no mystery. The verb has existed in Germanic from time immemorial, with cognates all over the place.
Posted on September 14, 2016
This post has been written in response to a query from our correspondent. An answer would have taken up the entire space of my next 'gleanings,' and I decided not to wait a whole month.
Posted on September 7, 2016
Those who have followed this series will remember that English kl-words form a loose fraternity of clinging, clinking, and clotted-cluttered things. Clover, cloth, clod, cloud, and clout have figured prominently in the story.
Posted on August 31, 2016
There was a desperate attempt to find a valid Greek cognate for cloth, but such a word did not turn up. One way out of the difficulty was to discover a Greek noun or verb beginning with sk- and refer its s to what is known as s-mobile ('movable s'). Movable s is all over the place. For instance, the English cognate of German kratzen is scratch (the same meaning).
Posted on August 24, 2016
All words, especially kl-words, and no play will make anyone dull. The origin of popular sayings is an amusing area of linguistics, but, unlike the origin of words, it presupposes no technical knowledge. No grammar, no phonetics, no nothin': just sit back and relax, as they say to those who fly overseas first class. So here is another timeout.
Posted on August 17, 2016
I keep clawing at the bars of the cage I built for myself. But first a digression. Walter W. Skeat wrote numerous notes on English etymology, some of which he eventually put together and published in book form. Much to my regret, not too many kl-words attracted his attention. But I was amused to discover that the verb clop means not only the sound made by shoes or hoofs but also 'to cling, adhere to.'
Posted on August 10, 2016
Perhaps the story would not have been worth telling if German and Dutch klein, the closest cognates of Engl. clean, did not mean 'small.' Long ago, on 4 July 2007, I devoted half of my post to the adjective mad.
Posted on August 3, 2016
As I have observed in the past, the best way for me to make sure that I have an audience is to say something deemed prejudicial or wrong. Then one or more readers will break their silence, and I'll get the recognition I deserve (that is, my comeuppance).
Posted on July 27, 2016
In anticipation of the post on clean, I decided to say something about the idioms in which clean figures prominently, but chose only those which have the structure as clean as.
Posted on July 20, 2016
Last week, I mentioned Francis A. Wood's rhyme words and rhyme ideas and cited his example cloud and crowd. In my life, such a pair is gleaning and cleaning.
Posted on July 13, 2016
Engl. cloud belongs so obviously with clod and its kin that there might not even be a question of its origin (just one more lump), but for the first recorded sense of clūd in Old English, which was 'rock, cliff.'
Posted on July 6, 2016
Once again, no gleanings: the comments have been too few, and there have been no questions. Perhaps when the time for a real rich harvest comes, I'll start gleaning like a house on fire. When last week I attacked the verb clutter, I planned on continuing with the kl-series; my next candidates were cloud and cloth.
Posted on June 29, 2016
In an old post, I once referred to Jack London's Martin Eden, a book almost forgotten in this country and probably in the rest of the English-speaking world. Martin is not Jack London's self-portrait; yet the novel is to a great extent autobiographical.
Posted on June 22, 2016
I expected that my series on dogs would inspire a torrent of angry comments. After all, dog is one of the most enigmatic words in English etymology, but the responses were very few. I am, naturally, grateful to those who found it possible to say something about the subject I was discussing for five weeks, especially to those who liked the essays.
Posted on June 15, 2016
My series on the etymology of dog and other nouns with canine roots has come to an end, but, before turning to another subject, I would like to say a few moderately famous last words. For some reason, it is, as already mentioned, just the names of the dog that are particularly obscure in many languages (the same holds for bitch and others).
Posted on June 8, 2016
The origin of Engl. dog will not look like a uniquely formidable problem if we realize that the names of our best quadruped friend are, from an etymological point of view, impenetrable almost all over the world. The literature on dog is huge, and the conjectures are many.
Posted on June 1, 2016
Here is a phrase whose origin seems to be known, but, as this does not mean that everybody knows it, a short discussion may not be out of place. I have such a huge database of idioms that once in six weeks or so I am seized with a desire to share my treasures with the public.
Posted on May 25, 2016
By this time, the thrust of the posts united by the title 'Not a dog's chance' must be clear. While dealing with some animal names, we plod through a swamp (or a bog, or a quagmire) and run into numerous monosyllabic words of varying structure (both vowels and consonants alternate in them), lacking a clear etymology, and designating several creatures, sometimes having nothing to do with one another (for instance, 'doe' and 'grasshopper,' though this is an extreme case).
Posted on May 18, 2016
Unlike tyke, bitch can boast of respectable ancestors, because its Old English form (bicce) has been recorded. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology notes that bicce is obscurely related to Old Icelandic bikkja (the same meaning). The OED online never uses the phrase obscurely related, and this is a good thing, for this verbal formula, which so often occurred in the past, is itself obscure.
Posted on May 11, 2016
The word dog is the bªte noire of English etymology. Without obvious cognates anywhere (the languages that have dog are said to have borrowed it from English), it had a shadowy life in Old English but managed to hound from its respectable position the ancient name of man's best friend, the name it has retained in the rest of Germanic.
Posted on May 4, 2016
Responses to my plea for suggestions concerning spelling reform were very few. I think we can expect a flood of letters of support and protest only if at least part of the much-hoped-for change reaches the stage of implementation. I received one letter telling me to stop bothering about nonsense and to begin doing something sensible.
Posted on April 27, 2016
To reconstruct an ancient root with a measure of verisimilitude is not too hard. However, it should be borne in mind that the roots are not the seeds from which words sprout, for we compare such words as are possibly related and deduce, or abstract their common part. Later we call this part 'root,' tend to put the etymological cart before the horse, and get the false impression that that common part generates or produces words.
Posted on April 20, 2016
In the recent post on bosom, I wrote that one day I would perhaps also deal with breast. There is nothing new I can say about it, but perhaps not all of our readers know the details of the word's history and the controversy about its origin.
Posted on April 13, 2016
The proverb in the title of this post rarely, if ever, occurs in modern literature and may even have been forgotten but for the title of Dorothy Sayers' novel. However, at one time it was well-known, and extensive literature is devoted to it. The publications appeared not only in the indispensable Notes and Queries, American Notes and Queries, and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine but also in such great newspapers and periodicals as The British Apollo and Churchman's Shilling Magazine, to say nothing of Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom.
Posted on April 6, 2016
Preparation for the Spelling Congress is underway. The more people will send in their proposals, the better. On the other hand (or so it seems to me), the fewer people participate in this event and the less it costs in terms of labor/labour and money, the more successful it will turn out to be. The fate of English spelling has been discussed in passionate terms since at least the 1840s.
Posted on March 30, 2016
Last week, I discussed the role of taboo in naming animals, a phenomenon that often makes a search for origins difficult or even impossible. Still another factor of the same type is the presence of migratory words. The people of one locality may have feared, hunted, or coexisted in peace with a certain animal for centuries. They, naturally, call it something.
Posted on March 23, 2016
The idea of today's post was inspired by a question from a correspondent. She is the author of a book on foxes and wanted more information on the etymology of fox. I answered her but thought that our readers might also profit by a short exploration of this theme. Some time later I may even risk an essay on the fully opaque dog. But before coming to the point, I will follow my hero's habits and spend some time beating about the bush and covering my tracks.
Posted on March 16, 2016
Last week I mentioned my 'strong suspicion' that bosom has the same root ('to inflate') as the verb boast. As a matter of fact, it was a conviction, not a suspicion, but I did not want to show my cards too early. Before plunging into matters etymological, perhaps something should be said about the word's bizarre spelling.
Posted on March 9, 2016
Not too long ago I discussed the origin of the verb brag, and already then knew that the turn of boast would soon come round. The etymology of boast is not transparent, but, in my opinion, it is not beyond recovery. Rather than following the immortal royal advice ('begin at the beginning, go on to the end and then stop'), I'll reverse my route and begin at the end.
Posted on March 2, 2016
It is the origin of idioms that holds out the greatest attraction to those who care about etymology. I have read with interest the comments on all the phrases but cannot add anything of substance to what I wrote in the posts. My purpose was to inspire an exchange of opinions rather than offer a solution. While researching by Jingo, I thought of the word jinn/ jinnee but left the evil spirit in the bottle.
Posted on February 24, 2016
Last week, in discussing the antiquated idiom hang out the broom, I mentioned kick the bucket and will now return to it. In the entry bucket2, the OED, usually reticent about the origin of such phrases, mentioned what Murray considered might be the most plausible idea. I am writing this essay for two reasons.
Posted on February 17, 2016
We know even less about the origin of idioms than about the origin of individual words. This is natural: words have tangible components: roots, suffixes, consonants, vowels, and so forth, while idioms spring from customs, rites, and general experience. Yet both are apt to travel from land to land and be borrowed. Who was the first to suggest that beating (or flogging) a willing horse is a silly occupation, and who countered it with the idea that beating a dead horse is equally stupid?
Posted on February 10, 2016
The lines above look (and sound) like identical oaths, but that happens only because of the ambiguity inherent in the preposition by. No one swears by my name, while Mr. Jingo has not written or published anything. Nowadays, jingoism 'extreme and aggressive patriotism' and jingoist do not seem to be used too often, though most English speakers still understand them, but in Victorian England, in the late nineteen-seventies and some time later, the words were on everybody's lips.
Posted on February 3, 2016
Some of the most enjoyable comments and questions are those that combine scholarship and play. One of our correspondents pointed out that Engl. strawberry, if pronounced as a Slavic word, means (literally) 'from grass take.' Indeed it does! In the Russian s travy beri, only one ending does not quite match Engl. s-traw-berry.
Posted on January 27, 2016
Those who read word columns in newspapers and popular journals know that columnists usually try to remain on the proverbial cutting edge of politics and be 'topical.' For instance, I can discuss any word I like, and in the course of more than ten years I have written essays about words as different as dude and god (though my most popular stories deal with smut; I have no idea why).
Posted on January 20, 2016
It so happens that I have already touched on the first and the last member of the triad whether'wether'weather in the past. By a strange coincidence, the interval between the posts dealing with them was exactly four years: they appeared on 19 April 2006 (weather) and 21 April 2010 (whether) respectively.
Posted on January 13, 2016
If things happened as they are suggested in the title above, I would not have been able to write this post, and, considering that 2016 has just begun, it would have been a minor catastrophe. People of all ages and, as they used to say, from all walks of life want to know something about word origins, but they prefer to ask questions about 'colorful' words (slang).
Posted on January 6, 2016
I often refer to the English etymological dictionary by Hensleigh Wedgwood, and one of our correspondents became seriously interested in this work. He wonders why the third edition is not available online. I don't know, but I doubt that it is protected by copyright. It is even harder for me to answer the question about the changes between the second and the third edition.
Posted on December 30, 2015
The author of the pronouncement in the title above is a matter of dispute, and we'll leave his name in limbo, where I believe it belongs. The Internet will supply those interested in the attribution with all the information they need. The paradoxical dictum (although the original is in French, even Murray's OED gave its English version in the entry blunder) is ostensibly brilliant but rather silly.
Posted on December 23, 2015
In their search for the origin of blunt, etymologists roamed long and ineffectually among similar-sounding words and occasionally came close to the sought-for source, though more often look-alikes led them astray. One of such decoys was Old Engl. blinn. Blinn and blinnan meant 'cessation' and 'to cease' respectively, but how can 'cease' and 'devoid of sharpness; obtuse' be related?
Posted on December 16, 2015
Yes, you understood the title and identified its source correctly: this pseudo-Shakespearean post is meant to keep you interested in the blog 'The Oxford Etymologist' and to offer some new ideas on the origin of the highlighted adjective.
Posted on December 9, 2015
Obviously, I would not have embarked on such a long manhunt if I did not have my idea on the origin of the troublesome word. It will probably end up in the dustbin (also known as ash heap) of etymology, but there it will come to rest in good company.
Posted on December 2, 2015
It is true that the etymology of homo confirms the biblical story of the creation of man, but I am not aware of any other word for 'man' that is akin to the word for 'earth.' Latin mas (long vowel, genitive maris; masculinus ends in two suffixes), whose traces we have in Engl. masculine and marital and whose reflex, via French, is Engl. male, referred to 'male,' not to 'man.'
Posted on November 25, 2015
This is the continuation of the story about the origin of the Germanic word for man. Last week I left off after expressing great doubts about the protoform that connected man and guma and tried to defend the Indo-European girl from an unpronounceable name. As could be expected, in their attempts to discover the origin of man etymologists cast a wide net for words containing m and n.
Posted on November 18, 2015
The title will probably be recognized at once: it is part of the last line of Kipling's poem 'If.' Unfortunately, Kipling's only son John never became a man; he was killed in 1918 at the age of eighteen, a casualty of his father's overblown patriotism. Our chances to reach consensus on the origin of the word man are not particularly high either.
Posted on November 11, 2015
For a long time I have been dealing with the words bad, bed, bud, body, bodkin, butt, bottom, and their likes. The readers who have followed the discussion will probably guess from today's title that now the time of path has come round.
Posted on November 4, 2015
I keep receiving comments and questions about idioms. One of our correspondents enjoys the phrase drunk as Cooter Brown. This is a well-known simile, current mostly or exclusively in the American south. I can add nothing to the poor stock of legends connected with Mr. Brown. Those who claim that they know where such characters came from should be treated with healthy distrust.
Posted on October 28, 2015
As promised in the previous post, I am going from body to bottom. No one attacked my risky etymology of body. Perhaps no one was sufficiently interested, or (much more likely) the stalwarts of the etymological establishment don't read this blog and have no idea that a week ago a mine was planted under one of their theories.
Posted on October 21, 2015
I am not sure that any lexicographer or historian of linguistics thought of writing an essay on James Murray as a speaker and journalist, though such an essay would allow the author to explore the workings of Murray's mind and the development of his style. (Let me remind our readers that Murray, 1837-1915, died a hundred years ago.)
Posted on October 14, 2015
Few people would today have remembered the word bodkin if it had not occurred in the most famous of Hamlet's monologues. Chaucer was the earliest author in whose works bodkin occurred. At its appearance, it had three syllables and a diphthong in the root, for it was spelled boidekin. The suffix -kin suggested to John Minsheu, our first English etymologist (1617), that he was dealing with a Dutch noun.
Posted on October 7, 2015
It so happened that I have been 'gleaning' the whole month, but today I'll probably exhaust the questions received during the last weeks. From a letter: 'I have been told Norwegians would say forth and back rather that back and forth since it was logical for them to envision going away, then coming back.'
Posted on September 30, 2015
Not too long ago, I promised to return to the origin of b-d words. Today I'll deal with Engl. bad and its look-alikes, possibly for the last time'not because everything is now clear (nothing is clear), but because I have said all I could, and even this post originated as an answer to the remarks by our correspondents John Larsson (Denmark) and Olivier van Renswoude (the Netherlands).
Posted on September 23, 2015
What is the origin of the now popular phrase in the house, as in 'Ladies and gentlemen, Bobby Brown is in the house'? I don't know, but a short explanation should be added to my response. A good deal depends on the meaning of the question 'What is the origin of a certain phrase?' If the querist wonders when the phrase surfaced in writing, the date, given our resources, is usually ascertainable.
Posted on September 16, 2015
This is the continuation of last week's 'gleanings.' Once again, I hasten to thank our correspondents for their questions and comments and want only to say something on the matter of protocol. When I receive private letters, I refer to the writers as 'our correspondents' because I cannot know whether they want to have their names bandied about in the media.
Posted on September 9, 2015
I received a question about the greatest etymologists' active mastery of foreign languages. It is true, as our correspondent indicated, that etymologists have to cast their nets wide and refer to many languages, mainly old (the deader, the better). So would the masters of the age gone by have felt comfortable while traveling abroad, that is, not in the tenth but in the nineteenth century?
Posted on September 2, 2015
Posted on March 1, 2006
Posted on March 8, 2006
Posted on March 15, 2006
This blog column has existed for a month. It was launched with the idea that it would attract questions and comments. If this happens, at the end of each month the rubric "Monthly Gleanings" will appear. Although in March I have not been swamped with the mail, there is enough for a full post. Also, one question was asked privately, but in connection with the blog, so that I think I may answer it here.
Posted on March 29, 2006
Posted on March 22, 2006
Posted on April 5, 2006
The shape of the word weather has changed little since it was first attested in the year 795. In Old English, it had d in place of th; the rest, if we ignore its present day spelling with ea, is the same. But its range of application has narrowed down to 'condition of the atmosphere,' while at that time it also meant 'air; sky; breeze; storm.'
Posted on April 19, 2006
Posted on April 26, 2006
Posted on May 10, 2006
Posted on May 3, 2006
Posted on May 17, 2006
Posted on May 24, 2006
Posted on May 31, 2006
Posted on June 14, 2006
Posted on June 7, 2006
Posted on June 28, 2006
Posted on June 21, 2006
Posted on July 12, 2006
Posted on July 19, 2006
Posted on July 26, 2006
Posted on August 2, 2006
Posted on August 9, 2006
While working on my etymological database, I looked through countless old journals and magazines. I especially enjoyed reading the reviews of etymological dictionaries published in their pages. Some were shockingly abrasive, even virulent; others delightfully chatty and unabashedly superficial.
Posted on August 16, 2006
Our egalitarian predilections have partly wiped out the difference between 'vulgar' and 'cool,' and the idea of being judgmental or appearing better educated than one's neighbor scares the living daylights out of intellectuals. Dictionaries, we are told, should be descriptive, not prescriptive.
Posted on August 23, 2006
Many words resemble mushrooms growing on a tree stump: they don't have common roots but are still related. I will use few examples, because if you've seen one, you've seen them all. Nothing is known about the origin of cub, which surfaced in English texts only in 1530 (that is, surprisingly late).
Posted on August 30, 2006
On August 23, I appeared on the 'Midmorning' show on Minnesota Public Radio. Many of you called in with questions, to some of which I could give immediate answers. But, the origin of several words I did not remember offhand and I promised to look them up in my database. Here are my responses.
Posted on September 6, 2006
Only children and foreigners express their surprise when they discover that the verb long does not mean 'lengthen' or that belong has nothing to do with longing. When we grow up, we stop noticing how confusing such similarities of form coupled with differences in meaning are.
Posted on September 13, 2006
Posted on September 20, 2006
Some time ago I received a question about the word macabre. This adjective first appeared in Old French, in the phrase dancemacabre. The story begins with the fresco of the Dance Macabre, painted in 1424 in the Church of Innocents at Paris. The English poet and monk John Lydgate knew the fresco.
Posted on September 27, 2006
The Oxford Eytmologist is at it again...
Posted on October 4, 2006
The Oxford Eytmologist takes on more words.
Posted on October 11, 2006
Anatoly Liberman ponders longevity.
Posted on October 18, 2006
Monthly Gleanings.
Posted on October 25, 2006
Anatoly weights in on Slang.
Posted on November 1, 2006
Oddest English Spellings, Part 5.
Posted on November 8, 2006
Anatoly Liberman's weekly column.
Posted on November 15, 2006
Anatoly's monthly gleanings.
Posted on January 31, 2007
Superstitions, unlike knowledge, spread quickly. Students' spelling breaks every instructor's heart, and we ask ourselves the question: How did so many people from all over the country, come to the unanimous conclusion that occurrence should be spelled occurance? It is, I believe, a huge conspiracy.
Posted on November 22, 2006
Anatoly Liberman answers some questions readers have submitted.
Posted on November 29, 2006
Anatoly Liberman looks at filler words, like and you know.
Posted on December 6, 2006
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origins of the phrase "Attaboy!"
Posted on December 13, 2006
Anatoly Liberman weekly column.
Posted on December 20, 2006
Anatoly Liberman's Monthly Gleanings.
Posted on December 27, 2006
Anatoly Liberman looks at the many meanings of the word "troll."
Posted on January 3, 2007
Anatoly Liberman's weekly column.
Posted on January 10, 2007
Anatoly Liberman's weekly column. The Oddest English Spellings Part Six.
Posted on January 17, 2007
A closer look at strumpets.
Posted on February 7, 2007
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origin of the word "dildo."
Posted on February 14, 2007
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origin of the word "brain."
Posted on February 21, 2007
Anatoly Liberman's monthly gleaings.
Posted on February 28, 2007
It is Anatoly's Anniversary!!!!
Posted on March 7, 2007
Anatoly looks at the oddest English spellings.
Posted on March 14, 2007
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word "cocktail."
Posted on March 28, 2007
Anatoly answers this month's questions.
Posted on July 25, 2007
Anatoly's monthly gleanings.
Posted on April 11, 2007
Anatoly's weekly column.
Posted on April 18, 2007
A stream of questions about the origin of loo never dries up...
Posted on April 25, 2007
Anatoly's April gleanings.
Posted on May 2, 2007
Anatoly looks at some of the oddest English spellings.
Posted on May 9, 2007
Posted on May 16, 2007
Posted on May 23, 2007
Anatoly looks at where pimps and faggots come together.
Posted on June 6, 2007
Anatoly reflects on his work in the past month.
Posted on May 30, 2007
Anatoly weighs in on pimps and faggots.
Posted on June 13, 2007
Anatoly weighs in on curmudgeon and catawampus.
Posted on June 20, 2007
Anatoly looks at confusables.
Posted on June 27, 2007
Anatoly is feeling a bit "mad" this week.
Posted on July 4, 2007
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word cockney.
Posted on July 11, 2007
Even a quick look at the history of words meaning 'break' shows how often they begin with the sound group br-. Break has cognates in several Germanic languages. The main Old Scandinavian verb was different (compare Modern Swedish bryta, Norwegian bryte, and so forth), but it, too, began with br-.
Posted on July 18, 2007
Anatoly looks at the origins of words we use today.
Posted on August 1, 2007
Anatoly Liberman looks at the death of the adverb.
Posted on August 8, 2007
Anatoly looks at weird spellings.
Posted on August 15, 2007
When I was growing up, I read Paul de Kruif's book Microbe Hunters so many times that I still remember some pages by heart. Two chapters in the book are devoted to Pasteur. The second is called 'Pasteur and the Mad Dog.' A book about great word hunters would similarly enthral the young and the old.
Posted on August 22, 2007
Anatoly answers questions gleaned from your comments.
Posted on August 29, 2007
Language changes through variation. Some people 'sneaked', others 'snuck'. The two forms may coexist for a long time, or one of them may be considered snobbish. Once the snobs die out, the form will go to rest with them. Or the snobs may feel embarrassed of being in the minority and 'go popular'.
Posted on September 5, 2007
The Devil is in people's thoughts, and his names are many. One of them is the obscure 'Old Nick'. The word nicker 'water sprite' explained as an old participle 'washed one' - is unrelated to it. Then there is 'nickel'. The term was easy to coin, but copper could not be obtained from the nickel ore.
Posted on September 12, 2007
Anatoly looks at the origins of directionals.
Posted on September 19, 2007
Anatoly looks at some questions from the past month.
Posted on September 26, 2007
Anatoly delves into word history for our entertainment.
Posted on October 3, 2007
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origin of the word "gig."
Posted on October 10, 2007
Anatoly looks at north and south.
Posted on October 17, 2007
Anatoly prepares for Halloween with the origins of witch.
Posted on October 24, 2007
Anatoly answers this month's questions and explains the intriguing history of the words element and hocus pocus.
Posted on October 31, 2007
How did we ever come up with the spelling for scythe? Anatoly looks at the history of conjoined letters "sc".
Posted on November 7, 2007
Anatoly uncovers how sneaked became snuck.
Posted on November 14, 2007
Anatoly explores pretty's myriad of meanings from unlikely origins.
Posted on November 21, 2007
Anatoly answers readers' questions and looks at the origins of bigot.
Posted on November 28, 2007
Anatoly looks at strong and weak past participles.
Posted on December 12, 2007
Anatoly takes a look at negative prefixes.
Posted on December 5, 2007
Anatoly divulges how seasons make up the year.
Posted on December 19, 2007
Anatoly answers questions that have come up throughout the month.
Posted on December 26, 2007
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word "blizzard."
Posted on January 2, 2008
Anatoly looks at everyday buzzwords.
Posted on January 9, 2008
Is the spellchecker compromising language history? Anatoly weighs in on spelling reform.
Posted on January 16, 2008
Anatoly considers the addition of suffixes.
Posted on January 23, 2008
Anatoly responds to comments on spelling reform.
Posted on January 30, 2008
Anatoly looks at the connection between the words "robber" and "robe."
Posted on February 6, 2008
Anatoly explains the key to "understanding".
Posted on February 13, 2008
Anatoly turns puckish.
Posted on February 20, 2008
Anatoly responds to comments on spelling reform.
Posted on February 27, 2008
Anatoly searches for the origin of hubba-hubba.
Posted on March 5, 2008
Two opposite forces act on the brain of someone who sets out to trace the origin of a word. To cite the most famous cases, coward is supposedly a 'corruption' of cowherd and sirloin came into being when an English king dubbed an edible loin at table (Sir Loin). Such fantasies have tremendous appeal.
Posted on March 12, 2008
It is not fortuitous that many words like 'puzzle', 'conundrum', and 'quiz' are themselves puzzles from an etymological point of view. They arose as slang, sometimes as student slang, and as we don't know the circumstances in which they were coined, our chances of discovering their origin is low.
Posted on March 19, 2008
Anatoly answers questions posed in March.
Posted on March 26, 2008
This story might be titled 'Some Words Have a Reputation to Live Up To,' (Part Two). While tracing the convoluted history of 'charade', I promised to devote some space to 'charlatan'. The element 'char-' unites them, and in scholarly works they have frequently been mentioned in one breath.
Posted on April 2, 2008
Anatoly examines the origin of the word fiasco.
Posted on April 9, 2008
Posted on April 16, 2008
Anatoly wonders why we double up on names in certain words.
Posted on April 23, 2008
Anatoly explores the history of spelling with the letter w.
Posted on April 30, 2008
Anatoly explores the history of OK.
Posted on May 7, 2008
Anatoly seeks the origin of "snob".
Posted on May 14, 2008
Anatoly explores why some words naturally go together.
Posted on May 21, 2008
Questions for the month are answered.
Posted on May 28, 2008
Anatoly gives a candid take on etymology.
Posted on June 4, 2008
Anatoly finds the appropriate sustenance for spelling reformers.
Posted on June 18, 2008
Anatoly answers questions.
Posted on June 25, 2008
Anatoly looks at apostrophes.
Posted on July 2, 2008
Anatoly looks at the word "Buckeye".
Posted on July 16, 2008
Anatoly celebrates a word pioneer.
Posted on July 9, 2008
Posted on July 23, 2008
Anatoly looks at the nickname "Hoosier".
Posted on July 30, 2008
Anatoly looks at the word "pinkie".
Posted on August 13, 2008
Anatoly looks at the word "haberdasher".
Posted on August 6, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "Berserk".
Posted on August 20, 2008
Anatoly Liberman answers questions.
Posted on August 27, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at guilt and shame.
Posted on September 10, 2008
Anatoly Liberman recounts the times when phonetics were used to determine the death, expulsion or release of a group of people, and takes a closer at the development of homonyms.
Posted on September 17, 2008
Anatoly answers questions.
Posted on September 24, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "hello".
Posted on October 1, 2008
Anatoly Liberman relates his adventures with plurals.
Posted on October 8, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the use of the split infinitive.
Posted on October 15, 2008
Anatoly looks at features of Indo-European languages.
Posted on October 22, 2008
Anatoly Liberman answers questions based on last month's posts.
Posted on October 29, 2008
Hello. In connection a previous post, I received two questions about the word 'hello'. The first concerned the repertory of h-interjections in the languages of the world. In 1924 Ernst Schwentner brought out a booklet titled 'The Primary Interjections in the Indo-European Languages' (in German).
Posted on November 5, 2008
Anatoly explains why it is hard to find the origins of the word "hobo".
Posted on November 12, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks into the Dutch origins of words.
Posted on November 19, 2008
Anatoly's November gleanings.
Posted on November 26, 2008
Anatoly looks at the possible origins of the word "conundrum".
Posted on December 3, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origins of words that look-alike.
Posted on December 10, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the origins of the word "gibberish".
Posted on December 17, 2008
Anatoly's post has seasonal cheer.
Posted on December 24, 2008
In the course of this month, two journalists have approached me with questions related to political scandals. My answers, neither of which has been printed in full, may perhaps interest the readers of our blog. They regarded the typicality of phrases such as Ponzi schemes, and using names as verbs.
Posted on December 31, 2008
Anatoly Liberman looks at the story on the word "helpmeet."
Posted on January 7, 2009
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word "chicanery."
Posted on January 14, 2009
Anatoly Liberman looks at the oddest English spellings.
Posted on January 21, 2009
Anatoly's January gleanings.
Posted on January 28, 2009
Anatoly's second installment of January gleanings.
Posted on February 4, 2009
A word, some scholars say, can have several etymologies. This is a misleading formulation. Various factors contribute to a word's meaning and form. All of them should be taken into account and become part of the piece of information we call etymology, because words are like human beings.
Posted on February 11, 2009
Anatoly considers the origins of the phrases 'grass widow' and 'straw man.'
Posted on February 18, 2009
Anatoly answers questions.
Posted on February 25, 2009
Anatoly reviews possible origins of the word 'ghetto.'
Posted on March 4, 2009
Long ago I wrote a column with the title 'Tit for Tat.' Engl. tip for tap also existed at one time. Words like tip, tap, top, tick, tack, tock, tit, tat, tot, as well as those with voiced endings like tid- (compare tidbit), tad, and tod ('bush; fox'), are ideal candidates for sound imitative coinages.
Posted on March 11, 2009
Anatoly explores the origins of the word 'gooseberry,' and its related phrases.
Posted on March 18, 2009
Anatoly answers questions about word origins.
Posted on March 25, 2009
Anatoly explores the origins of the word 'pet.'
Posted on April 1, 2009
Anatoly deliberates the origins of the words 'spoon,' 'fork,' and 'knife.'
Posted on April 8, 2009
Anatoly muses on the origins of the words 'peace' and 'war.'
Posted on April 15, 2009
Anatoly investigates the origin of the word 'race.'
Posted on April 22, 2009
Anatoly answers questions.
Posted on April 29, 2009
Anatoly analyzes some interesting differences in spelling and pronunciation between American and British English.
Posted on May 6, 2009
Anatoly looks at the origin of the word "Wednesday".
Posted on May 13, 2009
Anatoly looks at the word "theodolite".
Posted on May 20, 2009
Anatoly's monthly gleanings.
Posted on May 27, 2009
Anatoly looks at the word "bistro".
Posted on June 3, 2009
Anatoly Liberman demonstrates the difficulty of tracing the origins of every day words--especially considering the lack of consensus among linguists.
Posted on June 10, 2009
Oxford Etymologist, Anatoly Liberman, traces the roots of the word "yeomen."
Posted on June 17, 2009
Anatoly Liberman chronicles the development of the "American variety of English" from its colonial origins through today.
Posted on June 24, 2009
Anatoly Liberman's monthy gleanings.
Posted on July 1, 2009
Anatoly Liberman describes how "misspent political zeal turned 'squaw' into an ethnic slur."
Posted on July 8, 2009
Anatoly Liberman explores various cultural forms and meanings of the term "scalawag."
Posted on July 22, 2009
Anatoly Liberman tours the history of the word tram.
Posted on August 5, 2009
Anatoly looks at spelling reform, specifically at "sk" and "sc".
Posted on August 19, 2009
Anatoly Liberman explains the etymology of compound words, notably, blackguard.
Posted on August 12, 2009
Anatoly Liberman's gleanings.
Posted on September 2, 2009
Posted on August 26, 2009
Anatoly looks at oof and
Posted on September 9, 2009
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "chestnut."
Posted on September 16, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discovers connections between the origins of the words cobbler and clobber.
Posted on September 23, 2009
Anatoly Liberman's monthly gleanings.
Posted on September 30, 2009
Anatoly Liberman examines the history behind the words ocean and sea.
Posted on October 7, 2009
Anatoly Liberman responds to readers' questions and comments.
Posted on October 28, 2009
Anatoly Liberman examines meaning of the word Kike.
Posted on October 14, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of words with silent letters.
Posted on October 21, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymologies of "good" and "god" and demonstrates the two words are not related.
Posted on November 4, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of "dandy."
Posted on November 11, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of Whitsunday.
Posted on November 18, 2009
Anatoly Liberman responds to readers' questions and comments.
Posted on November 25, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of the word "rare."
Posted on December 2, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of "wayzgoose."
Posted on December 9, 2009
Anatoly Liberman discusses the etymology of "wedlock."
Posted on December 16, 2009
Anatoly Liberman looks at usage and spelling.
Posted on December 23, 2009
Anatoly Liberman's monthly gleanings.
Posted on December 30, 2009
Anatoly Liberman's weekly post.
Posted on January 6, 2010
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "dross".
Posted on January 13, 2010
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "dregs".
Posted on January 20, 2010
Anatoly answers questions.
Posted on January 27, 2010
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "trash".
Posted on February 3, 2010
Anatoly Liberman examines the origins and meanings of the word "pun."
Posted on February 10, 2010
Anatoly Liberman discusses the origins of the word "squeamish."
Posted on February 17, 2010
Anatoly Liberman ponders what he learned this month, "especially" the "buzzword" "neologist."
Posted on February 24, 2010
Anatoly Liberman discusses the word "culprit" as the first part of his Unpleasant People series.
Posted on March 3, 2010
In this post, the second part in his Unpleasant People series, Anatoly Liberman considers the word "Scoundrel."
Posted on March 10, 2010
For the third part of his Unpleasant People series, Anatoly Liberman discusses the recent origins of the word swindler.
Posted on March 17, 2010
Anatoly Liberman looks at the word "humbug".
Posted on March 24, 2010
Anatoly Liberman answers questions.
Posted on March 31, 2010
Anatoly Liberman looks at the words "dodge" and "kitsch".
Posted on April 7, 2010
Anatoly Liberman's weekly column.
Posted on April 14, 2010
The number of people in the English speaking world who distinguish in pronunciation between witch and which, wine and whine, wen and when is relatively small, and those who make this distinction do not say w-hitch, w-hine, and w-hen, but rather hwitch, hwine, and hwen. What follows is a breathtaking story of the hw-sound and the wh-spelling.
Posted on April 21, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman Last week I discussed the origin of the word cushion. Our correspondent wonders whether we are perhaps talking about bedrolls here. Judging by medieval miniatures from the East, old cushions were like those known to us, but the broad scope of referents, with the same word serving as the name of a cushion, bedcover, and mattress, does pose the question of the original object's form and uses. The reconstructed sense 'bundle'
Posted on September 15, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman There is something righteous about the right hand: it is supposed to point in the right direction and do everything right. In older Indo-European, even a special word existed for 'right hand,' as evidenced by Greek dexios (stress on the last syllable), Latin dexter, and others. A strong association connects the right hand with the south and the left hand with the north. Someone standing with his face turned to the rising sun (for example, while praying), will have his right hand stretched to the south and his left hand to the north. Old Irish tuath meant both 'north' and 'left' (when facing east). This case is not unique.
Posted on September 22, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman Is Standard English pronunciation a viable concept? I think it is, even if only to a point. People's accents differ, but some expectation of a more or less leveled pronunciation (that is, of the opposite of a broad dialect) in great public figures and media personalities probably exists. Jimmy Carter seems to have made an effort to sound less Georgian after he became President. If I am not mistaken, John Kennedy tried to suppress some of the most noticeable features of his Bostonian accent. But perhaps those changes happened under the influence of the new environment. In some countries, the idea of 'Standard' has a stronger grip
Posted on September 29, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman The most universal law of etymology is that we cannot explain the origin of a word unless we have a reasonably good idea of what the thing designated by the word means. For quite some time people pointed to India as the land in which rum was first consumed and did not realize that in other European languages rum was a borrowing from English. The misleading French spelling rhum suggested a connection with Greek rheum 'stream, flow' (as in rheumatism). According to other old conjectures, rum is derived from aroma or saccharum. India led researchers to Sanskrit roma 'water' as the word's etymon, and this is what many otherwise solid 19th-century dictionaries said. Webster gave the vague, even meaningless reference 'American,' but on the whole, the choice appeared to be between East and West Indies. Skeat, in the first edition of his d
Posted on October 6, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman Why indeed? But despite our financial woes, I am interested in the origin of the idiom, not in exorbitant prices. On the face of it (and the nose cannot be separated from the face), the idiom pay through the nose makes no sense. Current since the second half of the 17th century and probably transparent to the contemporaries, it later joined such puzzling phrases as kick the bucket and bees' knees. Idioms are harder to trace to their 'roots' than words. Etymology, though not an exact science, is governed by certain regularities (sound correspondences, patterns of semantic change, and so forth), but a search for the origin of idioms rarely needs the expertise of historical linguists. They will offer good
Posted on October 13, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman In 1984, old newspapers were regularly rewritten, to conform to the political demands of the day. With the Internet, the past is easy to alter. In a recent post, I mentioned C. Sweet, the man who discovered the origin of the word pedigree, and added (most imprudently) that I know nothing about this person and that he was no relative of the famous Henry Sweet. Stephen Goranson pointed out right away that in Skeat's article devoted to the subject, C. was expanded to Charles and that Charles Sweet was Henry's brother. I have the article in my office, which means I, too, at one time read it and knew who C. Sweet was. Grieved and
Posted on October 27, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman It seems reasonable that brisket should in some way be related to breast: after all, brisket is the breast of an animal. But the path leading from one word to the other is neither straight nor narrow. Most probably, it does not even exist. In what follows I am greatly indebted to the Swedish scholar Bertil Sandahl, who published an article on brisket and its cognates in 1964. The Oxford English Dictionary has no citations of brisket prior to 1450, but Sandahl discovered bresket in a document written in 1328-1329, and if his interpretation is correct, the date should be pushed back quite considerably. Before 1535, the favored (possibly, the only) form in English was bruchet(te).
Posted on October 20, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman Old codger is a phrase most speakers of American English still understand (in British English it has much greater currency), but cadger is either obsolete or dead. Yet the two words are often discussed in concert. A cadger was a traveling vendor, whose duties may have differed from that of a hawker, a peddler (the British spelling is pedlar), or a badger, but all those people were street dealers of sorts. The OED defines cadger so: 'a carrier; esp. a species of itinerant dealer who travels with a horse and cart (or formerly with a pack-horse), collecting butter, eggs, poultry, etc., from remote country farms for disposal in the town, and at the same time supplying the rural districts with small wares from the shops.' This meaning was recorded as early as the middle of the 15th century. Derogatory senses like 'a person prone to mooching' surfaced in books much later. Also late is the verb
Posted on November 3, 2010
By Anatoly Liberman Last week I wrote that one day I would reproduce some memorable statements from Skeat's letters to the editors. This day has arrived. I have several cartons full of paper clippings, the fruit of the loom that has been whirring incessantly for more than twenty years: hundreds of short and long articles about lexicographers, with Skeat occupying a place of honor. A self-educated man in everything that concerned the history of Germanic, he became the greatest expert in Old and Middle English and an incomparable etymologist. In England, only Murray, the editor of the OED, and Henry Sweet were his equals, and in Germany, only Eduard Sievers. Joseph Wright, another autodidact
Posted on November 17, 2010
This is an old chestnut. How did 'Raining Cats and Dogs' come into being, and stay, in the language? The possibilities are few. A foreign phrase is occasionally repeated verbatim or nearly so, and turns into gibberish. It is possible that the first 'cats and dogs' were not even animal names.
Posted on March 21, 2007
English is a language of limitless opportunities. Strange things happen in it. Some words are spelled alike but pronounced differently: 'bow' (the bow of a ship) and 'bow' (bow and arrows); 'row' (she kicked up a row) and 'row' (the front row); 'permit' (the verb) and 'permit' (the noun).
Posted on January 24, 2007
This is my 500th post for 'The Oxford Etymologist,' nine and a half years after this blog started in March 2006, and I decided to celebrate this event by writing something light and entertaining. Enough wrestling with words like bad, good, and god! Anyone can afford a week's break. So today I'll discuss an idiom that sounds trivial only because it is so familiar. Familiarity breeds not only contempt but also indifference.
Posted on August 26, 2015
The question then is: 'What does the root gu- signify?' The procedure consists in finding some word in Germanic and ideally outside Germanic in which gu- or g-, followed by another vowel and alternating with u means something compatible with the idea of 'god.' Here, however, is the rub. Old Germanic gu°- certainly existed, but we don't know what it meant when it was coined centuries before it surfaced in texts.
Posted on August 19, 2015
From what was said last week it follows that pagans did not need a highly charged word for 'god,' let alone 'God.' They recognized a hierarchy of supernatural beings and the division of labor in that 'heavenly' crowd. Some disturbed our dreams, some bereaved us of reason, and still others inflicted diseases and in general worked evil and mischief.
Posted on August 12, 2015
While dealing with the etymology of the adjective bad, I realized that an essay on good would be vapid. The picture in Germanic and Slavic with respect to good is trivial, while the word's ties outside those two groups are bound to remain unclear. Especially troublesome is Greek agath³s 'good,' from which we have the given name Agatha.
Posted on August 5, 2015
During the month of July I have received some questions, comments, and queries about things new to me. Thus, I know next to nothing about Latvian (my Indo-European interests more often make me turn to Lithuanian) and feel insecure when it comes to Romance etymology. The questions made me examine the areas that would under normal circumstances have not attracted my attention, and I am pleased.
Posted on July 29, 2015
Hermaphrodites are born rarely, and it is far from clear why their mythology achieved such prominence in Antiquity. Reference to cross-dressing during certain marriage rites does not go far, but the cult of Hermaphroditus is a fact, and Ovid's tale of the union in one body of the son of Hermes and Aphrodite is well-known.
Posted on June 11, 2008
For a long time the etymology of the word bad has been at the center of my attention (four essays bear ample witness to this fact), and the latest post ended with a cautious reference to the idea that Middle Engl. bad ~ badde, a noun that occurred only once in 1350 and whose meaning seems to have been 'cat,' is, from an etymological point of view, identical with the adjective bad.
Posted on July 22, 2015
The authority of the OED is so great that, once it has spoken, few people are eager to contest or even modify its verdict. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology adds perhaps (not probably!) to Murray's etymology, cites both b¦ddel and b¦dling (it gives length to ¦ in both words) and adds that there have been other, more dubious conjectures.
Posted on July 15, 2015
Quite often the first solid etymology of an English word comes from Skeat, but this is not the case with the adjective bad. In the first edition of his dictionary (1882), he could offer, with much hesitation, two Celtic cognates of bad, one of them being Irish Gaelic baodh 'vain, giddy, foolish, simple.' Much later, Charles Mackay, who believed that Irish Gaelic was the source of most English words, mentioned beud 'mischief, hurt' as the etymon of bad.
Posted on July 8, 2015
Several years ago, I wrote a post on the origin of the word frigate. The reason I embarked on that venture was explained in the post: I had run into what seemed to me a promising conjecture by Vittorio Pisani. As far as I could judge, his note had attracted no attention, and I felt it my duty to rectify the injustice.
Posted on July 1, 2015
The origin of plant names is one of the most interesting areas of etymology. I have dealt with henbane, hemlock, horehound, and mistletoe and know how thorny the gentlest flowers may be for a language historian. It is certain that horehound has nothing to do with hounds, and I hope to have shown that henbane did not get its name because it is particularly dangerous to hens (which hardly ever peck at it, and even if they did, why should they have been chosen as the poisonous plant's preferred victims?).
Posted on November 10, 2010
Our earliest etymologists did not realize how much trouble the adjective bad would give later researchers. The first of them'John Minsheu (1617) and Stephen Skinner (1671)'cited Dutch quaad 'bad, evil; ill.' (Before going on, I should note that today quad is spelled kwaad, which shows that a civilized nation using the Roman alphabet can do very well without the letter q.)
Posted on June 24, 2015
In the near future I'll have more than enough to say about bad, an adjective whose history is dismally obscure, but once again, and for the umpteenth time, we have to ask ourselves why there are words of undiscovered and seemingly undiscoverable origin. Historical linguists try to reconstruct ancient roots.
Posted on June 17, 2015
As a rule, I try not to deal with the words whose origin is supposedly known (that is, agreed upon). One can look them up in any dictionary or on the Internet, and no one needs a blog for disseminating trivialities. The etymology of bed has reached the stage of an uneasy consensus, but recently the accepted explanation has again been called into question.
Posted on June 10, 2015
Most of what I had to say on bug can be found in my book Word Origins and in my introductory etymological dictionary. But such a mass of curious notes, newspaper clippings, and personal letters fester in my folders that it is a pity to leave them there unused until the crack of etymological doom. So I decided to offer the public a small plate of leftovers in the hope of providing a dessert after the stodgy essays on bars, barrels, barracks, and barricades, to say nothing about cry barley.
Posted on June 3, 2015
In the United States everything is planned very long in advance, while in Europe one can sometimes read about a conference that will be held a mere three months later. By that time all the travel money available to an American academic will have been spent a millennium ago. In the United States, we have visions rather than short-range plans.
Posted on May 27, 2015
Last week, I wrote about the idiom to cry barley, used by children in Scotland and in the northern counties of England, but I was interested in the word barley 'peace, truce' rather than the phrase. Today I am returning to the north, and it is the saying the bishop has put (or set) his foot in it that will be at the center of our attention.
Posted on May 20, 2015
Girls, in some parts of England and the United States, say, or rather chant, while bouncing a ball: 'One, two, three, alairy, four five, six, alairy,' and so on. According to an 'eyewitness report,' they say so, while bouncing a ball on the ground, catching it with one hand, keeping the score, and accompanying each alairy with a circular swing of the leg, so as to describe a loop around but not obstruct the rising ball.
Posted on April 4, 2007
To finish the bar(r)-series, I deviated from my usual practice and chose a word about which there is at present relatively little controversy. However, all is not clear, and two theories about the origin of barricade still compete. According to one, the story begins with words like Italian barra and French barre 'bar' (barricades bar access to certain places), while, according to the other, the first barricades were constructed of barrels filled with earth, stones, and the like, so that the starting point should be French barrique or Spanish barrica.
Posted on May 13, 2015
The post two weeks ago was devoted to the origin and history of bar. In English, all words with the root bar- ~ barr- are from French. They usually have related forms in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, but their source in the Romance-speaking world remains a matter of unending debate.
Posted on May 6, 2015
Last month was a disaster: I confused the Wednesdays and then wrote 2014 for 2015. A student of the Middle Ages, I often forget in which millennium I live, so plus or minus one year does not really matter. We say: 'The migration happened six or seven thousand years ago.' This is the degree of precision to which I am accustomed.
Posted on April 29, 2015
A priest can be defrocked, and a lawyer disbarred. I wonder what happens to a historical linguist who cannot find an answer in his books. Is such an individual outsourced? A listener from Quebec (Qu©bec) asked me about the origin of the noun bar. He wrote: ''¦we still say in French barrer la porte as they still do (though less and less) on the Atlantic side of France.
Posted on April 22, 2015
For some reason, interest in the etymology of copasetic never abates. This adjective, a synonym of the equally infantile hunky-dory, is hardly ever used today unless the speaker wants to sound funny, but I cannot remember a single talk on words without someone's asking me about its derivation and thinking that the question is of a most imaginative kind.
Posted on July 5, 2006
I have always been interested in linguistic heavy metal. In the literature on English phrases, two 'metal idioms' have attracted special attention: dead as a doornail and to get (come) down to brass tacks. The latter phrase has fared especially well; in recent years, several unexpected early examples of it have been unearthed.
Posted on April 15, 2015
Many thanks for comments, questions, and reprimands, even though sometimes I am accused of the sins I have not committed. If I were a journalist, I would say that my remarks tend to be taken out of context. Of course I know what precession of the equinoxes is and italicized e, to point out that it is indeed the right form (precession, not procession).
Posted on April 8, 2015
One should not be too enthusiastic about anything. Wholly overwhelmed by the thought that winter is behind, I forgot to consult the calendar and did not realize that 25 March was the last Wednesday of the month and celebrated the spring equinox instead of providing our readership with the traditional monthly gleanings.
Posted on April 1, 2015
This is the week of the spring equinox, but I decided not to wait until June and write a post about the solstice. For a change, bonfire is 'a word of (fairly well-)known origin,' so don't expect revelations. However, it is always instructive to observe people beating about the bush long after it has burned up. The image of beating about the bush suggested the title of this post.
Posted on March 25, 2015
If you know the saying ossing comes to bossing, rest assured that it does not mean the same as ossing is bossing. But you may never have heard either of those phrases, though the verb oss 'to try, dare' is one of the favorites of English dialectology.
Posted on March 18, 2015
I was twelve years old when I first read Jack London's novel Martin Eden, and it remained my favorite book for years. Few people I know have heard about it, which is a pity. Jack London was a superb story teller, but his novels belong to what is called politely the history of literature'all or almost all except Martin Eden.
Posted on March 11, 2015
I received a question whether I was going to write about the word key in the series on our habitat. I didn't have such an intention, but, since someone is interested in this matter, I'll gladly change my plans and satisfy the curiosity of our friend.
Posted on March 4, 2015
One month is unlike another. Sometimes I receive many letters and many comments; then lean months may follow. February produced a good harvest ('February fill the dyke,' as they used to say), and I can glean a bagful. Perhaps I should choose a special title for my gleanings: 'I Am All Ears' or something like it.
Posted on February 25, 2015
The previous post dealt with the uneasy history of the word threshold, and throughout the text I wrote thresh~ thrash, as though those were two variants of the same word. Yet today they are two different words, and their relation poses a few questions. Old English had the strong verb ¾erscan (¾ = th in Engl. thresh), with cognates everywhere in Germanic.
Posted on February 18, 2015
One does not have to be a specialist to suggest that threshold is either a disguised compound or that it contains a root and some impenetrable suffix. Disguised compounds are words like bridal (originally, bride + ale but now not even a noun as in the past, because -al was taken for the suffix of an adjective) or barn, a blend of the words for 'barley,' of which only b is extant, and Old Engl. earn 'house.'
Posted on February 11, 2015
When it comes to origins, we know as little about the word home as about the word house. Distinguished American linguist Winfred P. Lehmann noted that no Indo-European terminology for even small settlements has been preserved in Germanic. And here an important distinction should be made.
Posted on February 4, 2015
I am pleased to report that A Happy New Year is moving along its warlike path at the predicted speed of one day in twenty-four hours and that it is already the end of January. Spring will come before you can say Jack Robinson, as Kipling's bicolored python would put it, and soon there will be snowdrops to glean. Etymology and spelling are the topics today. Some other questions will be answered in February.
Posted on January 28, 2015
It is astounding how mysterious the origin of such simple words as man, wife, son, god, house, and others like them is. They are old, even ancient, and over time their form has changed very little, sometimes not at all, so that we do not have to break through a thicket of sound laws to restitute their initial form.
Posted on January 21, 2015
Probably no other ethnic group has been vilified with so much linguistic ingenuity as the Jews. For the moment I will leave out of account Kike and Smouch and say what little I can about Sheeny, a word first recorded in English in 1824 (so the OED).
Posted on July 29, 2009
A dwelling is, obviously, a place in which someone dwells. Although the word is transparent , the verb dwell is not. Only its derivation poses no problems. Some verbs belong to the so-called causative group. They mean 'to make do or to cause to do.'
Posted on January 14, 2015
Although I am still in 2014, as the title of this post indicates, in the early January one succumbs to the desire to say something memorable that will set the tone to the rest of the year. So I would like to remind everybody that in 1915 James Murray, the first and greatest editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) or New English Dictionary (NED), died.
Posted on January 7, 2015
My post on laughing attracted two comments: an alleged counterexample from an Icelandic saga and a veritable flood of vituperation. The second writer was so disgusted that he could not even make himself finish reading the essay.
Posted on December 31, 2014
Posted on December 24, 2014
One of the dialogues in Jonathan Swift's work titled A complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation (1738) runs as follows
Posted on December 17, 2014
I have noticed that many of my acquaintances misuse the phrases a dry sense of humor and a quiet sense of humor. Some people can tell a joke with a straight face, but, as a rule, they do it intentionally; their performance is studied and has little to do with 'dryness.'
Posted on December 10, 2014
Two weeks ago, I discussed the troubled origin of the word aye 'yes,' as in the ayes have it, and promised to return to this word in connection with some other formulas of affirmation. The main of them is yes.
Posted on December 3, 2014
As always, I want to thank those who have commented on the posts and written me letters bypassing the 'official channels' (though nothing can be more in- or unofficial than this blog; I distinguish between inofficial and unofficial, to the disapproval of the spellchecker and some editors). I only wish there were more comments and letters.
Posted on November 26, 2014
The ayes may have it, but we, poor naysayers, remain in ignorance about the derivation of ay(e) 'yes.' I hope to discuss the various forms of assent in December, and we'll see that that the origin of some synonyms of ay(e) is also enigmatic.
Posted on November 19, 2014
From time to time I receive letters encouraging me to discuss not only words but also idioms. I would be happy to do so if I were better equipped. The origin of proverbial sayings (unless they go back to so-called familiar quotations) and idioms is usually lost beyond recovery.
Posted on November 12, 2014
As I mentioned last time, one of our correspondents asked me whether anything is known about this idiom. My database has very little on brown study, but I may refer to an editorial comment from the indispensable Notes and Queries (1862, 3rd Series/I, p. 190). The writer brings brown study in connection with French humeur brune, literally 'brown humor, or disposition,' said about a somber or melancholy temperament.
Posted on November 5, 2014
It so happened that at the end of this past summer I was out of town and responded to the questions and comments that had accumulated in August and September in two posts. We have the adjectives biennial and biannual but no such Latinized luxury for the word month.
Posted on October 29, 2014
If you have read the previous parts of this 'study,' you may remember that brown is defined as a color between orange and black, but lexicographical sources often abstain from definitions and refer to the color of familiar objects. They say that brown is the color of mud, dirt, coffee, chocolate, hazel, or chestnut.
Posted on October 22, 2014
Color names have been investigated in almost overwhelming detail, but it is not the etymology but usage that tends to 'throw us off the scent.'
Posted on October 15, 2014
Dangerous derivations and chance coincidences
Posted on October 8, 2014
I was out of town at the end of this past August and have a sizable backlog of unanswered questions and comments. It may take me two or even three weeks to catch up with them. I am not complaining: on the contrary, I am delighted to have correspondents from Sweden to Taiwan.
Posted on October 1, 2014
Color words are among the most mysterious ones to a historian of language and culture, and brown is perhaps the most mysterious of them all. At first blush (and we will see that it can have a brownish tint), everything is clear. Brown is produced by mixing red, yellow, and black.
Posted on September 24, 2014
Like every other custom in life, kissing has been studied from the historical, cultural, anthropological, and linguistic point of view. Most people care more for the thing than for the word, but mine is an etymological blog.
Posted on September 17, 2014
Yes, this is Post 450. The present blog was launched on March 1, 2006 and has appeared every Wednesday ever since, rain or shine. Another short year, and the jubilant world will celebrate the great number 500.
Posted on September 10, 2014
The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (ODEE) says about the verb wrap (with the abbreviations expanded): ''¦of unknown origin, similar in form and sense are North Frisian wrappe stop up, Danish dialectal vrappe stuff; and cf. Middle Engl. bewrappe, beside wlappe (XIV), LAP3.'
Posted on September 3, 2014
It occurred to me to write a short essay about the word verve by chance. As a general rule, I try to stick to my last and stay away from Romance etymology, even though the logic of research occasionally makes me meddle with it.
Posted on August 27, 2014
As can be guessed from the above title, my today's subject is the derivation of the word road. The history of road has some interest not only because a word that looks so easy for analysis has an involved and, one can say, unsolved etymology.
Posted on August 20, 2014
Once John Cowan suggested that I touch on the murky history of the noun qualm and try to shed light on it. To the extent that I can trust my database, this word, which is, naturally, featured in all dictionaries, hardly ever appears in the special scholarly literature.
Posted on August 13, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman On 20 November 2013, I discussed the verbs astonish, astound, and stun. Whatever the value of that discussion, it had a truly wonderful picture of a stunned cat and an ironic comment by Peter Maher on the use of the word stunning.
Posted on August 6, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Since I'll be out of town at the end of July, I was not sure I would be able to write these 'gleanings.' But the questions have been many, and I could answer some of them ahead of time.
Posted on July 30, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman To some people which and witch are homophones. Others, who differentiate between w and wh, distinguish them. This rather insignificant phenomenon is tackled in all books on English pronunciation and occasionally rises to the surface of 'political discourse.'
Posted on July 23, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman A few weeks ago, I talked about euphemisms on Minnesota Public Radio. The comments were many and varied. Not unexpectedly, some callers also mentioned clich©s, and I realized once again that in my resentment of unbridled political correctness, the overuse of buzzwords, and the ineradicable habit to suppress the truth by putting on it a coating of sugary euphemisms I am not alone.
Posted on July 16, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman The terrible word slough Some time ago, in my discussion of English spelling, I touched on the group ough, this enfant terrible of our orthography; slough figured prominently in it.
Posted on July 9, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Baron, mark, and concise. I am always glad to hear from our readers. This time I noted with pleasure that both comments on baron (see them posted where they belong) were not new to me.
Posted on July 2, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman The names of titles have curious sources and often become international words. The history of some of them graces student textbooks. Marshal, for instance, is an English borrowing from French, though it came to French from Germanic, where it meant 'mare servant' (skalkaz 'servant, slave'). Constable meant 'the count of the stable.'
Posted on June 25, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman I will begin with a short summary of the previous post. In English texts, the noun baron surfaced in 1200, which means that it became current not much earlier than the end of the twelfth century. It has been traced to Semitic (a fanciful derivation), Celtic, Latin (a variety of proposals), and Germanic. The Old English words beorn 'man; fighter, warrior' and bearn 'child; bairn' are unlikely sources of baron.
Posted on June 18, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Once again we are torn between Rome, the Romance-speaking world, and England. The word baron appeared in English texts in 1200, and it probably became current shortly before that time, for such an important military title would hardly have escaped written tradition for too long.
Posted on June 11, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Those who will look up the etymology of roil and rile will have to choose between two answers: 'from Old French' or 'of uncertain origin.' Judging by my rather extensive and constantly growing database, roil and rile have attracted little attention
Posted on June 4, 2014
Anatoly Liberman responds to this month's letters. He discusses the hotly contested issue of spelling reform, historical semantics, why words change meaning, the modern usage of the words 'unique' and 'decimate', 'agreement the American way', and explains how university administrators write.
Posted on May 28, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman There is an almost incomprehensible number of English words for money and various coins. Some of them, like shilling, are very old. We know (or we think that we know) where they came from. Other words (the majority) surfaced as slang, and our record of them seldom goes beyond the early modern period.
Posted on May 21, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman If I find enough material, I may tell several stories about how after multiple failures the ultimate origin of a common English word has been found to (almost) everybody's satisfaction. The opening chapter in my prospective Decameron will deal with pedigree, which surfaced in English texts in the early fifteenth century.
Posted on May 14, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman I think some sort of closure is needed after we have heard the arguments for and against spelling reform by two outstanding scholars. Should we do something about English spelling, and, if the answer is yes, what should we do? Conversely, if no, why no?Â
Posted on May 7, 2014
Anatoly Liberman's etymological thoughts and correspondences for April; regarding 'old languages and complexity', the origins of the word 'brothel', why 'selfie' is not such a new term after all, 'to whom it may concern', unintentional wolf puns, and the amusing revenges of time.
Posted on April 30, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Henry Bradley, while writing his paper (see the previous post), must have looked upon Skeat as his main opponent. This becomes immediately clear from the details. For instance, Skeat lamented the use of the letter c in scissors and Bradley defended it.
Posted on April 23, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Last week I wrote about Henry Bradley's role in making the OED what it is: a mine of information, an incomparable authority on the English language, and a source of inspiration to lexicographers all over the world
Posted on April 16, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Those who look up the origin of a word in a dictionary are rarely interested in the sources of the information they find there. Nor do they realize how debatable most of this information is. Yet serious research stands behind even the controversial statements in a modern etymological dictionary.
Posted on April 12, 2006
By Anatoly Liberman At one time I intended to write a series of posts about the scholars who made significant contributions to English etymology but whose names are little known to the general public. Not that any etymologists can vie with politicians, actors, or athletes when it comes to funding and fame, but some of them wrote books and dictionaries and for a while stayed in the public eye.
Posted on April 9, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Two or three times a year I receive questions about what the profession of an etymologist entails. I usually answer them briefly in my 'gleanings,' and once I even devoted a post to this subject. Perhaps it won't hurt if I return to the often-asked question again.
Posted on April 2, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Beguines. The origin of Beguine is bound to remain unknown, if 'unknown' means that no answer exists that makes further discussion useless. No doubt, the color gray could give rise to the name. If it were not so, this etymology would not have been offered and defended by many scholars.
Posted on March 26, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Apart from realizing that each of the three words in question (beggar, bugger, and bigot) needs an individual etymology, we should keep in mind that all of them arose as terms of abuse and sound somewhat alike. The Beguines,Beghards, and Albigensians have already been dealt with.
Posted on March 19, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Unlike so many words featured in this blog, bugger has a well-ascertained origin, but it belongs with the rest of this series because it sheds light on its companions beggar and bigot.
Posted on March 12, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman The final sentence in the essay posted in January was not a statement but a question. We had looked at several hypotheses on the origin of the verb beg and found that none of them carried conviction. It also remained unclear whether beg was a back formation on beggar or whether beggar arose as a noun agent from the verb.
Posted on March 5, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman I am impressed. Not long ago I asked two riddles. Who coined the phrase indefatigable assiduity and who said that inspiration does not come to the indolent? The phrase with assiduity turns up on the Internet at once (it occurs in the first chapter of The Pickwick Papers), but John Cowan pointed out that Dickens may have used (parodied?) a popular clich© of that time.
Posted on February 26, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Bigot will wait until the end of this miniseries, because some time ago (26 October 2011) I published a special post on this word and now have only a short remark to add to it. But beggars and buggers cry out for recognition and should not be denied it.
Posted on February 19, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman What does it take to be a successful etymologist? Obviously, an ability to put two and two together. But all scholarly work, every deduction needs this ability. The more words and forms one knows, the greater is the chance that the result will be reasonably convincing.
Posted on February 12, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Respectability in etymology is determined by age: the older, the better. The verb to bicker has been known since the fourteenth century, while the verb to bitch 'complain; spoil' is a nineteenth-century invention. On the other hand, the noun bitch occurred already in Old English, so that it is not quite clear which of the two words'bitch or bicker'should be awarded the first place.
Posted on February 5, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman Reference works: I received three questions. (1) Our correspondent would like to buy a good etymological dictionary of English. Which one can be recommended?
Posted on January 29, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman The world has solved its gravest problems, but a few minor ones have remained. Judging by the Internet, the spelling of whoa is among them. Some people clamor for woah, which is a perversion of whoa and hence 'cool'; only bores, it appears, don't understand it. I understand the rebels but wonder.
Posted on January 22, 2014
Why brothel? We will begin with the customer. Bro¾el surfaced in Middle English and meant 'a worthless person; prostitute.' The letters -el are a dead or, to use a technical term, unproductive suffix, but even in the days of its efflorescence it was rarely used to form so-called nomina agentis (agent nouns), the way -er is today added to read and work and yields reader and worker.
Posted on January 15, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman At the end of the nineteenth century, while working on the issue of the OED (then known as NED: New English Dictionary) that was to feature the word gray, James A. H. Murray sent letters to various people, asking their opinion about the differences between the variants gray and grey.
Posted on January 8, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman The shades of gray multiply (as promised in December 2013). Now that we know that greyhounds are not gray, we have to look at our other character, grimalkin. What bothers me is not so much the cat's color or the witch's disposition as the unsatisfactory state of etymology.
Posted on January 1, 2014
By Anatoly Liberman At the end of December people are overwhelmed by calendar feelings: one more year has merged with history, and its successor promises new joys and woes (but thinking of future woes is bad taste). I usually keep multifarious scraps and cuttings to dispose of on the last Wednesday of the year: insoluble questions come and never go away.
Posted on December 25, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I am returning to greyhound, a word whose origin has been discussed with rare dedication and relatively meager results. The component -hound is the generic word for 'dog' everywhere in Germanic, except English. I am aware of only one attempt to identify -hound with hunter (so in in the 1688 dictionary by Rºnolfur J³nsson).
Posted on December 18, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman One day the great god Thor was traveling and found himself in a remote kingdom whose ruler humiliated him and his companions in every possible way. Much to his surprise and irritation, Thor discovered that he was a poor drinker, a poor wrestler, and too weak to pick up a cat from the floor. To be sure, his host, a cunning illusionist, tricked him.
Posted on December 11, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Someone who today seeks reliable information on the origin of English words will, naturally, consult some recent dictionary. However, not too rarely this information is insufficient and even wrong (rejected opinions may be presented there as reliable).
Posted on December 4, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Brave and its aftermath. During the month of November, the main event in the uneventful life of the Oxford Etymologist (in this roundabout way I refer to myself) has been the controversy around the origin of bravus, the etymon of bravo ~ brave.
Posted on November 27, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman There are many ways to be surprised (confounded, dumbfounded, stupefied, flummoxed, and even flabbergasted). While recently discussing this topic, I half-promised to return to it, and, although the origin of astonish ~ astound ~ stun is less exciting than that of amaze, it is perhaps worthy of a brief note.
Posted on November 20, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman One of the minor questions addressed in my latest 'gleanings' concerned the origin of the adjective brave. My comment brought forward a counter-comment by Peter Maher and resulted in an exchange of many letters between us, so that this post owes its appearance to him. Today I am returning to brave, a better-informed and more cautious man.
Posted on November 13, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Words, as I have noted more than once, live up to their sense. For instance, in searching for the origin of amaze, one encounters numerous truly amazing reefs. This is the story. Old English had the verb amasian 'confuse, surprise.'
Posted on November 6, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Touch and go. I asked our correspondents whether anyone could confirm or disprove the nautical origin of the idiom touch and go. This is the answer I received from Mr. Jonathan H. Saunders: 'As a Merchant Mariner I have used and heard this term for over thirty years.
Posted on October 30, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman It is hard to hide something (anything) from Stephen Goranson (see his comment to Part 1), who will find a needle in a haystack, and The Canterville Ghost is a rather visible needle. Yet Oscar Wilde is no longer as popular as one could wish for.
Posted on October 23, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Don't hold your breath: all three words, especially the second and the third, came in from the cold and will return there. Nor do we know whether anything connects them. Deuce is by far the oldest of the three. Our attestations of it go back to the middle of the seventeenth century.
Posted on October 16, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Every word journalist is on the lookout for interesting pieces of information about language. H. W. Fowler, the author of the great and incomparable book Modern English Usage, confessed that his main reading was newspapers. Naturally: where else could he find so much garbled English?
Posted on October 9, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman As promised, I am returning to the English verb brag and the Old Scandinavian god Bragi (see the previous post). If compared with boast, brag would seem to be more suggestive of bluster and hot air. Yet both may have been specimens of Middle English slang or expressive formations.
Posted on October 2, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I begin almost every set of gleanings with abject apologies. To err is human. So it is not the mistakes I have made in the past and will make in the future that irritate me but the avoidable and therefore unforgivable slips.
Posted on September 25, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman The subject promised by today's title has been simmering on my back burner for a long time, but now that the essay on simpleton is out, I am ripe for tackling it.
Posted on September 18, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Simpleton is an irritating word. At first sight, its origin contains no secrets: simple + ton. And that may be all there is to it despite the obscurity of -ton. We find this explanation in the OED and in the dictionaries dependent on it.
Posted on September 11, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman My apologies for the mistakes, and thanks to those who found them. With regard to the word painter 'rope,' I was misled by some dictionary, and while writing about gobble-de-gook, I was thinking of galumph. Whatever harm has been done, it has now been undone and even erased.
Posted on September 4, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I have received many comments on the posts published in August and many questions. Rather than making these gleanings inordinately long, I have broken them into two parts. Today I'll begin by asking rather than answering questions, because to some queries I am unable to give quotable (or any) answers.
Posted on August 28, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman As always, I am grateful to our correspondents for their questions, suggestions, and corrections. Occasionally I do not respond to their queries because I have nothing to say and keep trying to find a quotable answer.
Posted on July 31, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I have been meaning to tell the story of askance for quite some time'as a parable or an exemplum. Popular books and blogs prefer to deal with so-called interesting words. Dude, snob, and haberdasher always arouse a measure of enthusiasm, along with the whole nine yards, dated and recent slang, and the outwardly undecipherable family names.
Posted on August 21, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman The phrase put the kibosh on surfaced in texts in the early thirties of the nineteenth century. For a long time etymologists have been trying to discover what kibosh means and where it came from. Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Gaelic Irish, and French have been explored for that purpose.
Posted on August 14, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman This is a story of the names of two letters. Appreciate the fact that I did not call it 'A Tale of Two Letters.' No other phrase has been pawed over to such an extent as the title of Dickens's novel.
Posted on August 7, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman It is common knowledge that an average page of an English dictionary contains at least twice as many borrowed as native words, even though come, go, see, sit, stand, do, make, man, woman, in, on, and other similar heavy duty words go back to Old English.
Posted on July 24, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman 'Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been? I've been to London to look at the Queen,/ Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, what did you there?/ I frightened a little mouse under the chair.' Evidently, our power of observation depends on our background and current interests.
Posted on July 17, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman The names of musical instruments constitute one of the most intriguing chapters in the science and pseudoscience of etymology. Many such names travel from land to land, and we are surprised when a word with romantic overtones reveals a prosaic origin. For example, lute is from Arabic (al'ud: the definite article followed by a word for 'wood, timber').
Posted on July 10, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Contrary to some people's expectation, July has arrived, and it rains incessantly, that is, in the parts of the world not suffering from drought. I often feel guilty on account of my avoiding the burning questions of our time.
Posted on July 3, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman One cannot predict which posts will interest the public and which will leave them indifferent. I hoped that my 'revolutionary' hypothesis on the origin of Old Nick would result in a tidal wave (title wave, as some of my students write), but it did not produce as much as a ripple, whereas the fairly trivial essay on the letter y aroused a lively discussion.
Posted on June 26, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Petty devils are all around us. Products of so-called low mythology, they often have impenetrable names. (Higher mythology deals with gods, yet their names are often equally opaque!) Some such evil creatures have appeared, figuratively speaking, the day before yesterday, but that does not prevent them from hiding their origin with envious dexterity (after all, they are imps). A famous evader is gremlin.
Posted on June 19, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Although a German word, Pumpernickel (which in what follows will not be capitalized) seems to be sufficiently familiar to the English speaking world not to require a gloss. The origin of the bread (Westphalia, and there perhaps the town of Osnabr¼cken) has been ascertained, but the etymology of the name remains a puzzle'at least to some extent.
Posted on June 12, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman In our enlightened age, we are beginning to forget how thickly the world of our ancestors was populated by imps and devils. Shakespeare still felt at home among them, would have recognized Grimalkin, and, as noted in a recent post, knew the charm aroint thee, which scared away witches. Flibbertigibbet (a member of a sizable family in King Lear), the wily Rumpelstilzchen, and their kin have names that are sometimes hard to decipher, a fact of which Rumpelstilzchen was fully aware.
Posted on June 5, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Language controlled by ruling powers? Very much depends on whether the country has a language academy that decides what is correct and what is wrong. Even in the absence of such an organization, a committee consisting of respected scholars and politicians sometimes lays down the law. Spelling is a classic case of 'ruling the language.'
Posted on May 29, 2013
or, Shame and Guilt from an Etymological Point of View, With Some Observations on Sham and Scam Thrown in for Good Measure (Part 1: Shame)
Posted on September 3, 2008
By Anatoly Liberman As has often happened in the recent past, this essay is an answer to a letter, but I will not only address the question of our correspondent but also develop the topic and write about Old Nick, his crew, and the goblin. The question was about the origin of the words bogey and boggle. I have dealt with both in my dictionary and in passing probably in the blog.
Posted on May 22, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I could have spent a hundred years bemoaning English spelling, but since no one is paying attention, this would have been a wasted life. Not every language can boast of useless letters; fortunately, English is one of them. However, it is in good company, especially if viewed from a historical perspective. Such was Russian, which once overflowed with redundant letters.
Posted on May 15, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman It may not be too widely known how hard it is to discover the origin of even 'easy' words. Most people realize that the beginning of language is lost and that, although we can sometimes reconstruct an earlier stage of a word, we usually stop when it comes to explaining why a given combination of sounds is endowed with the meaning known to us.
Posted on May 8, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Some time ago I read Sidney P. Moss's 1984 book Charles Dickens' Quarrel with America. Those who remember Martin Cuzzlewit and the last chapter of American Notes must have a good idea of the 'quarrel.' However, this post is, naturally, not on the book or on Dickens's nice statement: 'I have to go to America'on my way to the Devil' (this statement is used as an epigraph to Moss's work).
Posted on May 1, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Thief again. One comment on thief referred to an apparently admissible Lithuanian cognate. It seems that if we were dealing with an Indo-European word of respectable antiquity, more than a single Baltic verb for 'cower' or 'seize' would have survived in this group. I also mentioned the possibility of borrowing, and another correspondent wondered from whom the Goths could learn such a word.
Posted on April 24, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman This post is an answer to a letter I received from our correspondent Jonathan Davis. Not too long ago, I mentioned the differences in the pronunciation of niche: in the speech of most Americans it rhymes with pitch, but the rhyme niche/leash can also be heard, and it seems to be prevalent in Britain. Mr. Davis is an Englishman living in Texas and, not unexpectedly, favors the vowel of ee and sh in niche, while those around him prefer short i and ch.
Posted on April 17, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Within a year, two recent articles on the origin of the word boy have come to my attention. This is great news. Keeping a talent of such value under a bushel and withholding it from the rest of the world would be unforgivable. Nowadays, if a philological journal does not come as a reward for the membership in a popular society, its circulation is extremely low.
Posted on April 10, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman The title of this post is meant to warn our readers that the origin of the word thief has never been discovered. Perhaps an apology is in order. I embarked on today's seemingly thankless topic after I received a question from Denmark about the possible ties between Danish to 'two' and tyv 'thief.'
Posted on April 3, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman This has been a good month for the 'gleanings': I have received many questions and many kind words through the blog and privately. My usual thanks to those who read and react.
Posted on March 27, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I am saying goodbye to the Harlem Shake. The miniseries began two weeks ago withdance, moved on to twerk and twerp, and now the turn of the verb shake has come round. Reference books say little about the origin of shake. They usually list a few cognates and produce the Germanic etymon skakan (both a's were short)
Posted on March 20, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I decided to throw a look at a few tw-words while writing my previous post on the origin of dance. In descriptions of grinding and the Harlem Shake, twerk occurs with great regularity. The verb means 'to move one's buttocks in a suggestive way.' It has not yet made its way into OED and perhaps never will (let us hope so), but its origin hardly poses a problem: twerk must be a blend of twist (or twitch) and work (or jerk).
Posted on March 13, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman American schools dance nonstop. A wild display of 'flailing arms and wriggling torsos,' known as the Harlem Shake, is the latest addition to our civilization. High school 'kids' writhe eel-like on the floor, chairs, and tables, fall, sometimes break arms and legs, and have fun, which is the unassailable backbone of our educational system. At some places, teachers and principals dance with the kids and thus double the amount of fun.
Posted on March 6, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman My usual thanks to those who have commented on the posts, written me letters privately or through OUP, and corrected the rare but irritating typos. I especially appreciate comments that deal with the languages remote from my sphere of interest: Arabic, Farsi, Romany, and so forth. But, even while dealing with the languages that are close to my area of expertise (for example, Sanskrit and Frisian), quite naturally, I feel less comfortable in them than in English, German, or Icelandic (my 'turf').
Posted on February 27, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Dozens of words have not been forgotten only because Shakespeare used them. Scotch (as in scotch the snake), bare bodkin, and dozens of others would have taken their quietus and slept peacefully in the majestic graveyard of the Oxford English Dictionary but for their appearance in Shakespeare's plays. Aroint would certainly have been unknown but for its appearance in Macbeth and King Lear.
Posted on February 20, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman The questions people ask about word origins usually concern slang, family names, and idioms. I cannot remember being ever asked about the etymology of house, fox, or sun. These are such common words that we take them for granted, and yet their history is often complicated and instructive. In this blog, I usually stay away from them, but I sometimes let my Indo-European sympathies run away with me. Today's subject is of this type.
Posted on February 13, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman I am picking up where I left off a week ago. Mare and Mars. Can they be related? The chance is close to zero. Both words are of obscure origin, and attempts to explain an opaque word by referring it to an equally opaque one invariably come out wrong.
Posted on February 6, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Last time I was writing my monthly gleanings in anticipation of the New Year. January 1 came and went, but good memories of many things remain. I would like to begin this set with saying how pleased and touched I was by our correspondents' appreciation of my work, by their words of encouragement, and by their promise to go on reading the blog in the future. Writing weekly posts is a great pleasure.
Posted on January 30, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Primates have given Germanic language historians great trouble. In the most recent dictionary of German etymology (Kluge-Seebold), the entry Affe 'ape' is one of the most detailed. In the revised version of the OED, monkey is also discussed at a length, otherwise rare in this online edition. Despite the multitude of hypotheses, the sought-for solution is not in view.
Posted on January 23, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman One more drinking vessel, and I'll stop. Strangely, here we have another synonym for bumper, and it is again an old word of unknown origin. In English, goblet turned up in the fourteenth century, but its uninterrupted recorded history began about a hundred years later. Many names of vials, mugs, and beverages probably originated in the language of drinkers, pub owners, and glass manufacturers. They were slang, and we have little chance of guessing who and in what circumstances coined them.
Posted on January 16, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman Very long ago, one of our correspondents asked me how irregular forms like good'better and go'went originated. Not only was he aware of the linguistic side of the problem but he also knew the technical term for this phenomenon, namely 'suppletion.' One cannot say the simplest sentence in English without running into suppletive forms. Consider the conjugation of the verb to be: am, is, are. Why is the list so diverse? And why is it mad'madder and rude'ruder, but bad'worse and good'better?
Posted on January 9, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman One drinks to the coming New Year, and one drinks while remembering the old one. Besides, some do it according to the Gregorian calendar, while others prefer the Julian one. As could be expected, the end of the world has been delayed and life continues. I was touched by the kind words from our regular correspondents; over time they have become my good friends.
Posted on January 2, 2013
By Anatoly Liberman A Happy New Year to our readers and correspondents! Questions, comments, and friendly corrections have been a source of inspiration to this blog throughout 2012, as they have been since its inception. Quite a few posts appeared in response to the questions I received through OUP and privately (by email). As before, the most exciting themes have been smut and spelling.
Posted on December 26, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman This is a story of again; gain will be added as an afterthought. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, dictionaries informed their users that again is pronounced with a diphthong, that is, with the same vowel as in the name of the letter A.
Posted on December 19, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Some time ago, I devoted three posts to alcoholic beverages: ale, beer, and mead. It has occurred to me that, since I have served drinks, I should also take care of wine glasses. Bumper is an ideal choice for the beginning of this series because of its reference to a large glass full to overflowing. It is a late word, as words go: no citation in the OED predates 1677. If I am not mistaken, the first lexicographer to include it in his dictionary was Samuel Johnson (1755). For a long time bumper may have been little or not at all known in polite society.
Posted on December 12, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman For some time I have fought a trench war, trying to prove that fowl and fly are not connected. The pictures of an emu and an ostrich appended to the original post were expected to clinch the argument, but nothing worked. A few days ago, I saw a rafter of turkeys strutting leisurely along a busy street. Passersby were looking on with amused glee while drivers honked. The birds (clearly, 'fowl') crossed the road without showing the slightest signs of excitement.
Posted on December 5, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Booze is an enigmatic word, but not the way ale, beer and mead are. Those emerged centuries ago, and it does not come as a surprise that we have doubts about their ultimate origin. The noun booze is different: it does not seem to predate the beginning or the 18th century, with the verb booze 'to tipple, guzzle' making its way into a written text as early as 1300 (which means that it turned up in everyday speech some time earlier). The riddles connected with booze are two.
Posted on April 6, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Toasting, a noble art, deserves the attention of all those (etymologists included) who drink for joy, rather than for getting drunk. The origin of the verb to toast 'parch,' which has been with us since the end of the 14th century, poses no problems. Old French had toster 'roast, grill,' and Italian tostare seems to be an unaltered continuation of the Romance protoform. Tost- is the root of the past participle of Latin torrere (the second conjugation) 'parch.' English has the same root in torrid and less obviously
Posted on April 13, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman The word beestings once had its day in court. About half a century ago, American linguists were busy discussing whether there is something they called juncture, a boundary signal that supposedly helps people to distinguish ice cream from I scream when they hear such combinations. A special sign (#) was introduced in transcription: /ais#krim/ as opposed to /ai#skrim/. The two crown examples for the existence of juncture in Modern English were nitrate versus night rate and beestings versus bee stings. I remember asking
Posted on April 20, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Habit, in addition to the meaning that is universally known ('settled disposition of mind and body'), can also designate 'apparel,' even though in restricted contexts, such as monk's habit or riding habit. At first sight, these senses do not belong together, and yet they do. The word is, of course, a 'loan' from French. (I have mentioned more than once that linguistic loans are permanent, for they are never returned, except when, for example, an ancient Germanic, that is, Franconian word
Posted on April 27, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman The best way of finding out whether 'the world' is watching you is to err. The moment I deviate from the path of etymological virtue I am rebuffed, and this keeps me on my toes. Even an innocent typo 'causes disappointment' (as it should). Walter W. Skeat: 'But the dictionary-maker must expect, on the one hand, to be snubbed when he makes a mistake, and on the other, to be neglected when he is right' (1890). Apparently, this blog does not exist in a vacuum, though I would welcome more questions and comments in addition to rebuttals and neglect. Among other things, I noticed that
Posted on May 4, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman For this essay I have to thank Walter Turner, who asked me about the origin of larrup. The verb means 'beat, thrash, whip, flog.' Long before my database became available in printed form as A Bibliography of English Etymology, I described in a special post what kind of lexical fish my small-meshed net had caught. (Sorry for the florid style. I remember a dean saying in irritation to one of the speakers at
Posted on May 11, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Lunker seems to be well-known in the United States and very little in British English. Mark Twain used lunkhead 'blockhead.' Lunker surfaced in books later, but lunkhead must have been preceded by lunk, whatever it meant. In today's American English, lunker has several unappetizing and gross connotations, and we will let them be: one cannot constantly deal with turd and genitals.
Posted on May 18, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Because of the frequency of the words the, this, that, these, those, them, their, there, then, and with, the letter h probably occurs in our texts more often than any other (for Shakespeare's epoch thee and thou should have been added). But then of course we have think, three, though, through, thousand, and words with ch, sh,
Posted on May 25, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman I was delighted to hear from a fellow journalist that his experience matches mine: no reaction when one's work is good and immediate rebuke when one errs. However, critics save us from complacency, so may they keep their vigil. I am particularly grateful for the explanation about the difference between in future 'from now on' and in the future 'in days to come,' because
Posted on June 1, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Practically everything that can be said about the origin of penguin has been said in the OED, and in what follows I will only touch on three later works on the subject. It must be admitted that these works are almost as flightless as the bird they discuss. Here is the relevant part of the digest of the OED's long note, as it appears in The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology: ''¦of unknown origin; first recorded in both applications [that is, as 'great auk' and as 'penguin'] in reports
Posted on June 8, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Like the previous post on penguin, this one has been written in response to a question from our correspondent. His surname is Jump, and he has investigated the origin of the homonymous verb quite well. My task consists in adding a few details to what can be found in the Internet and easily available dictionaries.
Posted on June 15, 2011
Posted on June 22, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Half of 2011 is behind us. This is reason enough for looking through one's notes and offering a retrospect. Old Business Once again many thanks to those who responded to my question about the difference between in future and in the future. I am sure
Posted on June 29, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Before we embark on the etymology of golf, something should be said about the pronunciation of the word. Golf does not rhyme with wolf (because long ago w changed the vowel following it), but in the speech of some people it rhymes with oaf, and 'goafers' despises everyone who would allow l to creep in
Posted on July 6, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Where there is golf, there are clubs; hence this post. But club is an intriguing word regardless of the association. It surfaced only in Middle English. Since the noun believed to be its etymon, namely klubba, has been attested in Old Icelandic, dictionaries say that club came to English with the Vikings or their descendants. Perhaps it did. In Icelandic, klubba coexists with its synonym klumba, and the opinion prevails that bb developed from mb, which later became mp.
Posted on July 13, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman It is inevitable that after dealing with club 'cudgel' we should ask ourselves where club 'group of members' came from. Some people think that the explanation is natural and easy. Skeat was among them. Following his etymology of club 'cudgel,' he also derived this club from a Scandinavian source and commented: 'Lit[erally] 'a clump of people'.
Posted on July 20, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman When asked about the origin of a certain word, I often answer: 'I have no idea' (in addition, of course, to 'I don't remember' and 'I have to look it up in a good dictionary'). Sometimes, after consulting a dictionary, I add: 'No one knows.' The questioners express surprise: a doctor should be able to diagnose patients, a plumber is called to fix the leak, and etymologists are evidently paid for explaining the origin of words. There may or might be a fat living in
Posted on July 27, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Inkling: English is full of such cozy, homey words. There is the noun inkle 'linen tape or thread' and the verb inkle 'to whisper.' The noun is still listed as current, while the verb, which was extremely rare in the past, has survived only in dialectal use. Both, as well as inkling, were first recorded in Middle English, but little can be said about them. Winkle, twinkle, and crinkle shed no light on their past. Inkle 'tape' and inkle 'whisper' don't seem to belong together. Dutch has enkel 'simple,' and Swedish has enkel 'single.'
Posted on August 3, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman In those rare cases in which people ask my advice about good writing, I tell them not to begin (to not begin?) their works with epigraphs from Mark Twain or Oscar Wilde, for the rest will look like an insipid anticlimax, and, disdainful of ground-to-dust buzzwords and familiar quotations, I also suggest that people avoid (naturally, like the plague) such titles as 'A Tale of Two Friendships/ Losses/ Wars,' etc. and resist the temptation to
Posted on August 10, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Suggestions on the origin of tennis go back to the beginning of English etymological lexicography, and one can teach a semester-long course by using only the attempts to discover who, where, when, and why called the game this. The game of tennis is not called tennis in any other language, unless a borrowing from English is used (as happened to hockey and football among others), and some people thought this was reason enough to insist on the English origin of the word. They asked questions like: 'Why should we go
Posted on August 17, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman From time to time I mention the unsung heroes of English etymology, but only once have I devoted a post to such a hero (Frank Chance), though I regularly sing praises to Charles P.G. Scott, the etymologist for The Century Dictionary. Today I would like to speak about Joseph Wright (1855-1930). He was not an etymologist in the strict sense of this term, but no article on the origin of English words can do without consulting The English Dialect Dictionary he edited.
Posted on August 24, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman One of our most faithful correspondents writes: 'According to the Wall Street Journal, Indiana now outlawed teaching script in schools, so the kids can concentrate on their typing.' He was saddened by the news, and so was I. He asked me about non-cursive writing in old times, especially in the days of Chaucer. Here is a
Posted on August 31, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman We are in deep waters here. A first puzzle is that ship has exact cognates in Frisian, Dutch, German, Scandinavian, and Gothic, but nowhere outside Germanic. The ancient Indo-Europeans called their floating vessel something else, and we know what they called it. The modern echo of that word can be seen in Latin navis (from whose root we have navigation; and remember Captain Nemo's Nautilus 'little ship' and the Argonauts?), as well as in several other languages. So why ship?
Posted on September 7, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Alongside Old Icelandic skip 'ship,' we find the verb skipa 'arrange; assign.' It is tempting to suggest that the unattested meaning of this verb was either 'arrange things on a ship; prepare a ship for a voyage; make it secure and shipshape' or even 'board a ship, travel by ship,' because the connection between skip and skipa can hardly be doubted. However, not improbably, the earliest meaning of ship was simply 'thing made, artifact,' rather than 'vessel,' with skipa reminding us of that sense.
Posted on September 14, 2011
I decided to stay at sea for at least two more weeks. The history of the word frigate is expected to comfort Germanic scholars, who may not know that, regardless of the language, the names of ships invariably give etymologists grief. In English, frigate is from French, and in French it is from Italian, so that the question is: Where did Italian fregata come from? Naturally, nobody knows. Although the literature
Posted on September 21, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Ingle is usually derived from Celtic. The Scots form is the same as the English one, while Irish Gaelic has aingeal. The Celtic word is a borrowing of Latin ignis 'fire' (cf. Engl. ignite, ignition). Therefore, some etymologists derive Engl. ingle directly from the Latin diminutive igniculus; ingle nook gives this derivation some support. Be that as it may, no path leads from ingle to inkling.
Posted on September 28, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman The history of boat is no less obscure than the history of ship. Britain was colonized by Germanic-speakers in the fifth century CE from northern Germany and Denmark. It is hard to imagine that the invaders, who became known to history as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes and who must have known a good deal about navigation, stopped using boats after they crossed the Channel. But a cognate of boat has not turned up in any modern dialect spoken on the southern coast of the North Sea.
Posted on October 5, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman When we deal with the origin of ship and boat (the names of things pertaining to material culture), problems are almost predictable. Such words may have been borrowed from an unknown language (or from an attested language, but definitive proof of the connection is wanting) or coined in a way we are unable to reconstruct, but wife? Yet its etymology is no less obscure. My proposal will add to the existing stock of conjectures, and the future will show whether it has any chance of survival, let alone acceptance.
Posted on October 12, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman During five and a half years of its existence, this blog has featured the periodical Notes and Queries twice. Why I am turning to this subject again (now probably for the last time) will become clear at the end of the post. Notes and Queries appeared on November 3, 1849. In a series of short notes (naturally, notes) spread over the years 1876-1877, its first editor William John Thoms (1803-1885) told the world how the periodical had become a reality and how almost overnight
Posted on October 19, 2011
Nobody wants to be called a bigot, but accusations of bigotry are hurled at political opponents with great regularity, because (obviously) everyone who disagrees with us is a bigot, and it is to the popularity of this ignominious word that I ascribe the frequency with which I am asked about its origin. Rather long ago I wrote about bigot in the 'gleanings,' but answers in the 'gleanings' tend to be lost, while a separate essay will pop up in the Internet every time someone will ask: 'Where did bigot come from?'
Posted on October 26, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman This has been a long month, and I was very pleased to have such generous feedback. Today I'll only respond to the comments and will deal with the questions next Wednesday. Many thanks to our correspondents who take the time to agree and disagree with me and suggest new topics. In one comment, my responses were called derogatory. God forbid! Why should they even sound such to anyone? I may misunderstand an opponent or refuse to go all the way with him or her ('them'), but I am truly grateful for the attention my blog receives, and I like to hear counterarguments, even though no one's opinion has ever changed as a result of discussion.
Posted on November 2, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Last week I answered only the questions that needed relatively detailed answers. Today's 'issue' will be devoted to shorter queries.
Posted on November 9, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman The spelling of those two words does not bother us only because both are so common and learned early in life. Yet why not shure and shugar? There is a parallel case, and it too leaves us indifferent, though for a different reason.
Posted on November 16, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman All sources inform us about the Arabic-Turkish home of the word coffee, though in the European languages some forms were taken over directly from Arabic, so that the etymological part of the relevant entry in dictionaries and encyclopedias needs modification. There is a possibility of coffee being connected with the name of the kingdom of Kaffa, but this question need not bother us at the moment. The main puzzle is the development of the form coffee rather than its distant origin.
Posted on November 23, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman It was good to hear from Masha Bell, an ally in the losing battle for reformed spelling. Her remarks can be found at the end of the previous post (it was about su- in sure and sugar), and here I'll comment briefly only on her questions.Â
Posted on November 30, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman It will be seen that the main question about tea is the same as about coffee, namely: How did the form tea conquer its numerous rivals?
Posted on December 7, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Some time ago, a colleague asked me what materials I have on the place name Rotten Row; she was going to write an article on this subject. But her plans changed, and the article did not appear. My folders contain a sizable batch of letters to Notes and Queries and essays from other popular sources dealing with Rotten Row. I am not a specialist in onomastics, and, if I am not mistaken, the question about the etymology of Rotten Row has never been answered to everybody's satisfaction.
Posted on December 14, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman The year 2011 is coming to an end. Strange that we say 'come to an end,' even though a year, unlike a rope, a street, and even life, in which it is hard to make ends (or both ends) meet, can have only one end, but such are the caprices of usage. In any case, the end of the year is close at hand. Those interested in such tricks may recollect that year sometimes needs neither the definite nor the indefinite article when we speak about this time of year, and so it has been for centuries.
Posted on December 21, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman Last Wednesday, in anticipation of the inevitable calendar leap, I discussed the origin of the word end. The end has come. This post happens to be the last in 2011 ' not really a rite of passage, for a week from now another Wednesday will bring the world another post, dated January 4, 2012. As announced, it will be devoted to the verb begin. One should not take December or oneself too seriously, but I am pleased to say that this blog is read and quoted by many and that I continue to receive letters and comments from all over the world.
Posted on December 28, 2011
Posted on December 29, 2011
By Anatoly Liberman As promised, the first of the fifty-two posts due to appear in 2012 will be devoted to the verb begin, whose siblings have been attested in all the West Germanic languages (English is one of them) and Gothic. Surprisingly, they did not turn up in Old Scandinavian, except for Danish (under the influence of German?). Old Icelandic for 'begin' was byrja, and its cognates continued into Norwegian and Swedish, let alone Modern Icelandic and Faroese. The etymology of begin has not been explained to everybody's satisfaction, but such is the history of most etymological flesh.
Posted on January 4, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Like all word columnists, I keep receiving the same questions again and again. Approximately once a month someone asks me about the origin of the F-word, the C-word, and gay. Well, the C-word has been investigated in great detail, and a few conjectures are not so bad.
Posted on January 11, 2012
To an etymologist ache is one of the most enigmatic words. Although it has been attested in Old English, its unquestionable cognates in other languages are few.
Posted on January 18, 2012
In the post on the C-word, I made two mistakes, for both of which I am sorry, though neither was due to chance. In Middle High German, the word klotze 'vagina' existed, and I was going to write that, given such a noun, the verb klotzen 'copulate' can also be reconstructed.
Posted on January 25, 2012
by Anatoly Liberman The question about the origin of gay 'homosexual' has been asked and answered many times (and always correctly), so that we needn't expect sensational discoveries in this area. The adjective gay, first attested in Middle English, is of French descent; in the fourteenth century it meant both 'joyous' and 'bright; showy.' The OED gives no attestations of gay 'immoral' before 1637.
Posted on February 1, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman I usually try to discuss words whose origin is so uncertain that, when it comes to etymology, dictionaries refuse to commit themselves. But every now and then words occur whose history has been investigated most convincingly, and their history is worth recounting. Such is the word odd. Everything is odd about it, including the fact that its original form has not survived in English.
Posted on February 8, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Unlike hogwash or, for example, flapdoodle, the noun balderdash is a word of 'uncertain' (some authorities even say of 'unknown') origin. However, what is 'known' about it is probably sufficient for questioning the disparaging epithets.
Posted on February 15, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman I borrowed the title of this post from an ad for an alcoholic beverage whose taste remains unknown to me. The picture shows two sparsely clad very young females sitting in a bar on both sides of a decently dressed but bewildered youngster. I assume their age allows all three characters to drink legally and as much as they want. My concern is not with their thirst but with the word dude. After all, this blog is about the origin of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, rather than the early stages of alcoholism.
Posted on February 22, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman There has been a good deal to glean this month because the comments and responses have been numerous and also because, although February is a short month even in a leap year, in 2012 it had five Wednesdays. Among the questions was one about the profession and qualifications of an etymologist. It is a recurring question from young correspondents, and I have answered it briefly more than once, but always in the 'gleanings.' It occurred to me that perhaps I should write a short essay on this subject and, if someone else asks me about such things in the future, I will be able to refer to this post. The rest will be discussed next week.
Posted on February 29, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The Infamous C-Word. This is the letter I received soon after the publication of the post devoted to our (formerly) most unpronounceable word: ''¦I am writing to ask you if you have run across it [this word] as a nautical term. I am a former sailing ship mariner (a.k.a. 'tall ships') and sailmaker and currently maritime historian/editor for the National Maritime Historical Society.
Posted on March 7, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Since this blog is now in the seventh year of its existence (if I remember correctly, it started in March 2006), some questions tend to recur. Our correspondent wants to know the origin of the word winter. Long ago I touched on winter and summer, but briefly, in the 'gleanings,' so that it may be useful to devote a short series to the Germanic names of the seasons, leave these posts in the archive, and thus avoid possible repetition.
Posted on March 14, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The ancient Indo-Europeans lived in the northern hemisphere (see the previous post), but, although this conclusion is certain, it does not follow that they divided the year into four seasons. Our perception of climate is colored too strongly by Vivaldi, the French impressionists, and popular restaurants. At some time, the Indo-Europeans dominated the territory from India to Scandinavia (hence the name scholars gave them). They lived and traveled in many climate zones, and no word for 'winter,' 'spring,' 'summer,' and 'autumn' is common to the entire family; yet some cover several language groups.
Posted on March 21, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman I have received many questions, some of which are familiar (they recur with great regularity) and others that are new and will answer a few today and the rest in a month's time. Nostratic Hypothesis. Our correspondent Mr. Steve Miller asked me whether I ever treat the topic of language evolution and, if I do, what I think of the Nostratic hypothesis.
Posted on March 28, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The Latin for 'winter; snowstorm' is hiems, a noun related in a convoluted way to Engl. hibernate. It is a reflex (continuation) of an old Indo-European word for 'winter,' and its cognates in various languages are numerous. Germanic must also have had one of them, but it lies hidden like the proverbial needle in a hayrick. Old Icelandic (OI) gymbr means 'one-year old sheep.' In the Scandinavian area, this word does not have an exotic ring, as follows from Modern Icelandic and Norwegian gimber ~ gymber ~ gimmerlam (the latter refers specifically to a sheep that has not yet lambed), along with Swedish gymmer with its dialectal variants.
Posted on April 4, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman My February blog on dude has been picked up by several websites, and rather numerous comments were the result of the publicity. Below, I will say what I think of the word's 'true' etymology and quote two pronouncements on 'dudedom,' as they once appeared in The Nation. But before doing all that, I should thank the readers who pointed to me the existence of some recent contributions to the subject.
Posted on April 11, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman My romance with shrimp began when, years ago, I looked up the etymology of scrumptious in some modern dictionary. Naturally, it turned out that the word's origin is unknown (this happens every time I try to satisfy my curiosity in the area of my specialization). The usually sensible Century Dictionary suggests that scrumptious is an alternation of scrimptious, from scrimption, a funny noun going back to scrimp. The OED thinks so too.
Posted on April 18, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Two weeks ago, I pondered the fortunes of the gregarious shrimp. The next ingredient of the scr- ~ shr- cocktail will be the much maligned but innocent shrew. As The Century Dictionary puts it, 'there is no foundation in fact for the vulgar notion that shrews are poisonous, or for any other of the popular superstitions respecting these harmless little creatures.' The shrew is an insectivorous mammal. An old etymology traced shrew to a root meaning 'cut' (as in shear) and glossed the word as 'biter' on account of its allegedly venomous bite. Another version of this etymology refers to the shrew's pointed snout. The Old High German cognate of shrew meant 'dwarf' (a figure cut short?).
Posted on May 2, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Why don't good and hood rhyme with food and mood? Why are friend and fiend spelled alike but pronounced differently? There is a better way of asking this question, because the reason for such oddities is always the same: English retains the spelling that made sense centuries ago. At one time, the graphic forms we learn one by one made sense. Later the pronunciation changed, while the spelling remained the same. Therefore, the right question is: What has happened to the pronunciation of the words that give us trouble?
Posted on May 9, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Several people pointed out to me that I cannot distinguish a shrimp from a prawn, and I am afraid they are right. The picture copied for the shrimp post had the title 'Shrimp cocktail,' but the shrimp there are too big and are really prawns. In any case, I decided to atone for my mistake and write a post on the etymology of prawn. This plan was hard to realize, because the origin of prawn is really, that is, hopelessly unknown: the word exists, but no one can say where it has come from. It is strange that more or less the same holds for shrimp and shark, though both are less opaque. There must have been some system behind calling those sea creatures. The fishermen who coined such names had a reason to call a shrimp a shrimp and a prawn a prawn.
Posted on May 16, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The fishy series in this blog began with shrimp, reached the heights of prawn, and now, bypassing countless intermediate steps, will offer a discussion of shark. I am sorry to admit that despite the monster's size and voracity I can say deplorably little about the chosen subject, but, since I always deal with obscure vocabulary, I suffer from self-inflicted wounds and have no reason to complain. Before I come to the point, an apology is in order. While compiling my voluminous bibliography of English etymology, I didn't encounter references to Tom Jones's publication on shark.
Posted on May 23, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Shrew again. Soon after I posted an essay on shrew, in which I dissociated that word from a verb meaning 'cut,' a correspondent asked me how my etymology (from 'devil') could be reconciled with the obvious connection between Old Engl. scirfemus (related to sceorfan 'cut') and German Schermaus (related to scheren, the same meaning), the latter from Middle High German scheremus. (The relevant forms can be found in the OED.) The connection referred to in the letter cannot be denied, but I think that both the Old English and the Middle High German word owe their existence to folk etymology: the shrew was associated with venom and its name underwent change.
Posted on May 30, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Spelling. I am grateful for the generous comments on my post in the heartbreak series 'The Oddest English Spellings.' Several years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Masha Bell at a congress in Coventry, and around that time I corresponded with Valerie Yule. A positive comment from Peter Demaere (Canada) reinforced my message. The situation is as odd as English spelling. Spelling reform had famous supporters from the start. Great linguists, including Walter W. Skeat and Otto Jespersen, and outstanding authors and public figures agreed that we should no longer spell the way we do.
Posted on June 6, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The literature on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary is extensive, but I am not sure that there is a book-length study of the reception of this great dictionary. When in 1884 the OED's first fascicle reached the public, it was met with near universal admiration. I am aware of only two critics who went on record with their opinion that the venture was doomed to failure because it would take forever to complete, because all the words can not and should not be included in a dictionary, and because the slips at Murray's disposal must contain numerous misspellings and mistakes.
Posted on June 13, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The problem with Christopher Robin's woozles and heffalumps was that no one knew exactly what those creatures looked like. The boy just happened to be 'lumping along' when he detected the exotic creature. 'I saw one once,' said Piglet. 'At least I think I did,' he said. 'Only perhaps it wasn't.' So did I,' said Pooh, wondering what a Heffalump was like. 'You don't often see them,' said Christopher Robin carelessly. Tracking a woozle was no easy task either. 'Hallo!' said Piglet, 'what are you doing?'
Posted on June 20, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The fish known as Clupea harengas has two main names: in the Scandinavian countries, it is called sild or something similar (this name made its way to Finland and Russia), while in the lands where the West Germanic languages are spoken (English belongs to this group) the word is herring, also with several variants, for example, German Hering (the spelling H¤ring is quite obsolete), Dutch haring, and so forth. The rarely used English word sile 'young herring' is a late adaptation of sild. The origin of both sild and herring is doubtful.
Posted on July 11, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Not that I can say anything quotable on the subject of the mackerel, but people keep writing about it and the attempts to understand how this fish got its name are so interesting that the story may be worth telling. Only one thing seems certain. Mackerel first appeared in a West-European text, in the French form makerels (plural) about 1140 (which means that it was known much earlier), and no one doubts that the English borrowed their word from Old or Anglo-French. From France it spread to other lands, sometimes through an intermediary. The question is why the French called the mackerel this.
Posted on July 18, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The forms in the title are substandard but ubiquitous in conversational English, and the universally understood reference to the genre called whodunit (it originated about seventy years ago) testifies to its partial victory. I have often heard the question about their origin and will try to answer it, though my information is scanty and to the best of my knowledge, a convincing theory of whodunit (the construction, not the genre) is lacking, which does not augur well for a detective story.
Posted on August 15, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman All modern dictionaries state that the adverb ajar goes back to the phrase on char, literally 'on the turn' (= 'in the act of turning'). This is, most probably, a correct derivation. However, such unanimity among even the most authoritative recent sources should be taken with caution because reference books tend to copy from one another. Recycling a plausible opinion again and again produces an illusion of solidity in an area notorious for debatable results. That is why it is so interesting to read books published before Skeat's dictionary (1882) and the OED came out.
Posted on August 22, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Farting and participles (not to be confused with cabbages and kings). Summer is supposed to be a dead season, but I cannot complain: many people have kindly offered their comments and sent questions. Of the topics discussed in July and August, flatulence turned out to be the greatest hit. I have nothing to add to the comments on fart. Apparently, next to the election campaign, the problem of comparable interest was breaking wind in Indo-European.
Posted on August 29, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman I have written more than once that the only hope to reform English spelling would be by doing it piecemeal, that is, by nibbling away at a comfortable pace. Unfortunately, reformers used to attack words like have and give and presented hav and giv to the irate public. This was too radical a measure; bushes exist for beating about them. Several chunks of orthographic fat are crying to be cut off.
Posted on September 12, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman An etymologist is constantly on the lookout for so-called motivation. Why is a cat called cat, and why do English speakers say tree if the Romans called the same object arbor? As everybody knows, the 'ultimate truth' usually escapes us. Once upon a time (about five thousand or even more years ago?) in a hotly debated locality there lived the early Indo-Europeans, and we still use words going back to their partly unpronounceable sound complexes.
Posted on September 19, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman First and foremost, many thanks to those who have sent questions and comments and corrected my mistakes. A good deal has been written about the nature of mistakes, and wise dicta along the errare humanum est lines have been formulated. Yes, to err is human, but it is the stupidity and 'injustice' of some mistakes that are particularly vexing.
Posted on September 26, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Last week's 'gleanings' were devoted to spelling and ended with the promise to address the other questions in the next installment. But, since the previous part inspired some comments, I will briefly return to Spelling Reform. One of the questions was: 'Who needs the reform?' Everybody does. At present, children spend hours learning 'hieroglyphs' like chair, choir, character, ache, douche, weird, pierce, any and many versus Annie and manly, live (verb) versus live (adjective), and hundreds of others.
Posted on October 3, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman The title of this post sounds like an introduction of two standup comedians, but my purpose is to narrate a story of two nautical words. The origin of one seems to be lost, the other looks deceptively transparent; but there may be hope. Both turned up in the seventeenth century: in 1624 (awning) and 1607 (tarpaulin) respectively.
Posted on October 17, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Etymology, a subject rarely studied on our campuses, enjoys the respect of many people, even though they persist in calling it entomology. Human beings always want to know the origin of things, but sometimes etymology is made to carry double, like the horse in O. Henry's story 'The Roads We Take.' For instance, it is sometimes said that etymology helps us to use words correctly. Alas, it very seldom does so. If someone asks us about the meaning of the adjective debonair and is not only informed that a debonair man is genial, suave, and so forth but also that the adjective goes back to the French phrase de bon aire 'of good disposition (nature),' this may help.
Posted on October 24, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Fowl, fox, and pooch. My cautious reservations about a tie between the etymon of fowl and the verb fly were dismissed in one of the comments. Therefore, a few additional notes on that word may be in order. The origin of fowl is uncertain, that is, controversial, not quite unknown.
Posted on November 7, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman Bullying is a hot topic. Strict laws have been passed with the view of intimidating the intimidators or at least keeping them at bay. Regardless of the consequences such measures may have, linguists cannot ignore the problem and keep out of the public eye. So to arms, comrades! That a word like bully should vex etymologists needn't surprise anybody.
Posted on November 14, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman It has been a tempestuous month in the world but a quiet one in the department of English etymology. Both the comments and the questions I received dealt with separate words, and there have been not too many of them. Lollygag. In July 2007 I already wrote what I thought about this word. Although most people, at least in America, say lollygag, its doublet lallygag is well-known. The variation is typical.
Posted on November 28, 2012
By Anatoly Liberman It cannot but come as a surprise that against the background of countless important words whose origin has never been discovered some totally insignificant verbs and nouns have been traced successfully and convincingly to the very beginning of Indo-European. Fart ('not in delicate use') looks like a product of our time, but it has existed since time immemorial. Even the nuances have not been lost: one thing is to break wind loudly (farting); quite a different thing is to do it quietly (the now obscure 'fisting').
Posted on July 25, 2012
Question: How large is an average fluent speaker's vocabulary? Answer: I have often heard this question, including its variant: 'Is it true that English contains more words than any other (European) language?' The problem is that 'an average fluent speaker' does not exist. Also, it is important to distinguish between how many words we recognize (our so-called passive vocabulary) and how many we use in everyday communication (active vocabulary).
Posted on March 30, 2011
Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, and Gordon Cook
Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, and Gordon Cook
Alex Bayliss, Robert Hedges, and Robert Otlet
Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, and Gordon Cook
Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, and Gordon Cook
Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, and Gordon Cook
Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and H. R. Woudhuysen
David Wilton
David Bach
Joanne B. Eicher
Michael D. Coogan
Yiannis Gabriel
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