The random etymology of the day

[Porter]

Does the word scribner, as in "Bartleby the Scribner" share the same root?

[Jonathon]

I would assume so, but strangely, it appears that scribner is not a word in English but merely a surname. But some other related words are scripture and scribble.

[Porter]

And, I assume, scribe?

[Jonathon]

Yeah, that one, too.

[Tante Shvester]

I thought it was "scrivener".

[Porter]

What about scrimshaw?  Is that related?

[Jonathon]

Aha. I thought "scribner" sounded a little off, but I was blanking as to what else it could be. Yes, scrivener is also related. It's just a form that took a detour through French before arriving in English.

[Jonathon]

What about scrimshaw?  Is that related?

The OED says it's of obscure origin; I see no reason to assume that it's related. There's no semantic connection that I can see, and phonologically it's pretty tenuous, too.

[Porter]

meta

I understand that meta comes from the Greek and it means "change", as it metamorph, or shape change.

How does this connect to usage of meta meaning "of a higher, more abstract level", such as a meta-conversation (a conversation about conversations) or meta-gaming (playing a game with a game).

[Jonathon]

But it doesn't just mean "change." It could also mean something like "after" or "behind." Apparently the new sense comes from a misanalysis of the word metaphysics, taking it to mean "beyond physics" or "physics at a higher level." Here's what the OED says:

Asclepius in his commentary on the Metaphysics says that Aristotle thought that ontological philosophy should be taught after natural philosophy, and that this explains why the work is entitled meta physika ‘After the Physics’.

From the "beyond" or "higher" meaning, it's just a few small steps to "meta-thread" sort of meaning.

[Porter]

That's interesting.

And what's sad is that if I had read that last week, I wouldn't have known what ontological means.

[Jonathon]

Main Entry: on·to·log·i·cal
Function: adjective
Date: 1782
1 : of or relating to ontology

Duh.

Actually, I can never remember what it means.

[Farmgirl]

Ontology?  How is that different than onocology?

   

[Porter]

It's talking about how things really are, as opposed to how we perceive them.

[Tante Shvester]

Ontology?  How is that different than onocology?
 

Onocology is the study of "oh, no!"

[Jonathon]

The word "cedilla" (the little hook mark used in words like "façade") literally means "little z." In Latin it would have been something like zeticula. It's a diminutive form of the Latin letter "zeta." In medieval manuscripts, a small z was often written below or next to a c to indicate that it was supposed to have a "soft" pronunciation. Eventually this fused with the letter and became a diacritical mark.

[Jonathon]

Wow. I haven't posted a random etymology of the day in almost a month. Quick! Someone give me a word.

[pooka]

Someone told my daughter that ontology meant the study of what it means to be a person.  But I think that was a definition intended for a 3rd grader.

A word, a word.  

Succinct?

[Jonathon]

Succinct is the past participle of the Latin succingere, which comes from sub + cingere "to gird." So the verb means "to gird up" and the past participle means "girded up." The sense extended to mean "confined by a girdle" and then "compressed into a small space" and eventually "verbally concise or terse." Weird.

And I originally thought that I didn't recognize the root cingere, but I think I do—the French word for "belt" is ceinture, which presumably comes from the past participle, cinct.

Edit: Ooh! And the word cinch is related, too. That comes via the Spanish cincha "girdle," which comes from the noun form of cingere, cingulum. The meaning of "an easy thing" comes from the sense of "a sure hold." The verb comes straight from the belt/girdle sense of cinch.

[pooka]

Cool.

[Porter]

virile and hysterical

[Tante Shvester]

virile and hysterical

Are you requesting etymologies or praising Jon Boy?

[Jonathon]

Virile's easy. Vir is the Latin word for "man" (the gender-specific term, not the gender-neutral term "homo"). There was a corresponding Old English word were that still survives in werewolf, though its cognates are alive and well in other Germanic languages. Virilis meant simply "of a man" or "manly." The word virtue is also related and originally meant something like "manliness."

 

[Tante Shvester]

And doesn't "hysterical" share the same root as "hysterectomy" and the like.  Because women are so out-of-control emotional because of their biology.


Not that I agree, but that's the etymology.

[Jonathon]

*slaps Tante across the face*

Get ahold of yourself, woman!

Yes, you are correct. Hystera is Greek for "womb." Here's the OED's definition of hysteria:

A functional disturbance of the nervous system, characterized by such disorders as anæsthesia, hyperæsthesia, convulsions, etc., and usually attended with emotional disturbances and enfeeblement or perversion of the moral and intellectual faculties. (Also called colloquially hysterics.)

Women being much more liable than men to this disorder, it was originally thought to be due to a disturbance of the uterus and its functions.

The "funny" sense of hysterical came from this:

Characterized by convulsive emotion or excitement such as marks hysteria; morbidly emotional or excited. (Said freq. of convulsive fits of laughter or weeping.)