Author Topic: The random etymology of the day (Read 222465 times)

Brinestone · « **Reply #600 on:** October 03, 2007, 10:23:46 AM »

Jonathon's at an all-day annual kickoff meeting and will be out of the office. He gets done at 3:00, though.

Porter · « **Reply #601 on:** October 03, 2007, 10:27:55 AM »

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Jonathon's at an all-day annual kickoff meeting and will be out of the office. He gets done at 3:00, though.

*fails to resist*

Brinestone · « **Reply #602 on:** October 03, 2007, 11:11:22 AM »

Well, he gets paid for all eight hours. That counts, right?

Jonathon · « **Reply #603 on:** October 03, 2007, 04:01:56 PM »

The OED defines opacity as "the quality or fact of being opaque; opaqueness." Opaqueness is "the quality of being opaque; opacity." I'd take this to mean that they are synonymous. The former was borrowed from French, which of course came from Latin. The second takes the root straight from Latin and applies an English suffix to it instead. And they were both coined or borrowed at roughly the same time, so they've coexisted now for roughly 400 years.

Sometimes when there are pairs like this, there are different shades of meaning. Or sometimes people think that there are different shades of meaning, but oftentimes usage history doesn't back it up. If there's any difference in meaning, it's that opacity has more extended and metaphorical senses, but that's most likely because opaqueness has never really been used much. Google turns up only 149,000 hits for it to almost 2.5 million for opacity.

And finally, both opaqueness and opacity are indeed nouns, and opaque is an adjective. I don't know what your son means by "opacity means that the item IS opaque." And as to how I use them, well, I don't use opaqueness. It sounds clunky to me, but that's probably because I virtually never hear it.

Farmgirl · « **Reply #604 on:** October 04, 2007, 06:02:09 AM »

I love it when there is no "I'm right, he's right". We were BOTH right in our usage of it!

Zalmoxis · « **Reply #605 on:** October 04, 2007, 10:48:26 AM »

You know what would be cool? A high medieval/renn. fantasy biblio-mystery series where the protagonist is an expert in languages (a linguist). Something like The Name of the Rose, but less lofty and literary.

Porter · « **Reply #606 on:** October 04, 2007, 11:07:39 AM »

Isn't that called The DaVinci Code?

Jonathon · « **Reply #607 on:** October 04, 2007, 11:41:21 AM »

I'm pretty sure that was set in the modern day, and the protagonist was not a linguist but a madeupfieldologist.

Jonathon · « **Reply #608 on:** October 31, 2007, 11:57:52 AM »

The word mess meaning "state of untidiness" has a strange origin. It traces back to the Latin word missus, meaning "placing" or "putting." It was formed from the verb mittere, meaning "to send" or "to put." Words like mission and commit also come from this root.

In Late Latin missus was used to mean "portion of food" or "course at dinner," an extended sense that developed from the "putting" or "placing" meaning. The word became mes in Old French and was then borrowed into English. The mess in mess kit or mess hall still retains the original meaning.

But then another sense developed, meaning "mixed food." From this came "jumbled mass" and "state of confusion" and finally "state of untidiness."

Porter · « **Reply #609 on:** October 31, 2007, 12:03:05 PM »

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In Late Latin missus was used to mean "portion of food" or "course at dinner,"

Is it related to this when mess is used to mean "some"?

Jonathon · « **Reply #610 on:** October 31, 2007, 12:07:04 PM »

You mean like a mess of kids? Unfortunately, etymonline.com doesn't provide enough info for me to tell. I could check the OED when I get home.

Porter · « **Reply #611 on:** October 31, 2007, 12:13:09 PM »

Yes, like a mess of kids.

*awaits answer*

Primal Curve · « **Reply #612 on:** October 31, 2007, 03:44:58 PM »

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In Late Latin missus was used to mean "portion of food" or "course at dinner,"

Ah, I always knew my missus was good for dessert.

Zalmoxis · « **Reply #613 on:** November 01, 2007, 08:12:50 AM »

I just remembered one today -- this is highly suspect, but...

The Roma word for awesome/cool is "mishtoe" (not sure on the exact spelling). I was told that it came from the German "mit Stock" which means "with cane" or in other words to walk around with a cane like a stylish young man of the early 19th century.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #614 on:** November 01, 2007, 08:18:30 AM »

In film making class, we learned that the term for silent movies was "M.O.S.", for Mit Out Sound. A lot of the early directors were Germans.

Jonathon · « **Reply #615 on:** November 03, 2007, 08:49:22 PM »

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Yes, like a mess of kids.

*awaits answer*

Okay, I finally got around to looking it up (sorry—I've been busy the last few evenings). It appears that mess meaning "quantity" is indeed related. The original "portion of food" meaning developed into more specialized senses like "quantity sufficient to make a dish" and then generalized to simply "quantity of something."

Porter · « **Reply #616 on:** November 09, 2007, 08:55:46 AM »

tool, as in "He's such a tool."

I had never heard it used this way until a few years ago, so I assumed that it was a recent slang. But then I heard a quote from, IIRC, the 1770s where somebody called the Governor of Massachusetts a tool.

Noemon · « **Reply #617 on:** November 10, 2007, 08:45:55 AM »

Really? That's so interesting! I'd also assumed that it was a recent slang term. Do you have enough context to know if it meant the same thing then that it does now?

Porter · « **Reply #618 on:** November 10, 2007, 08:59:35 AM »

The usage sounded the same, but I must admit that I don't really understand what it means to call somebody a tool. What does it mean?

It would take me many hours to find you the quote, though. I heard it in a series of audio lectures about the American Revolution, and I don't which one it was in.

Noemon · « **Reply #619 on:** November 10, 2007, 09:21:19 AM »

Tool

Looks like it's been in use in that way since at least the mid 17th century.

The definition there is what I've always understood the term to mean.

Jonathon · « **Reply #620 on:** November 10, 2007, 10:45:41 AM »

It seems to me that some of the slang usage now is a little different from the "person used by another for his own ends" meaning. But I don't have the best grasp on the slang that the kids these days are using.

Porter · « **Reply #621 on:** November 10, 2007, 11:33:03 AM »

That definition is what I naturally assumed the term meant, but like Jonathon, it doesn't seem to fit all the waysWell, that definition fits for the quote I heard. IIRC, the term I've heard it used.

Anyway, that description works for the quote I was talking about, where the term was used to describe Thomas Hutchinson, the loyalist governor of Massachusetts during the hulabaloo over the Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party.

Noemon · « **Reply #622 on:** November 10, 2007, 01:23:26 PM »

Sorry for swearing here, but I can't really think of a way of saying this that doesn't involve either swearing or a ridiculous amount of circumlocution. Id the current popular use of "tool" more or less equivalent to the established use of the word "dick"?

Porter · « **Reply #623 on:** November 10, 2007, 02:48:43 PM »

It doesn't seem that strong, but that may be my personal (anti-vulgar) prejudice, not an accurate reflection.

Jonathon · « **Reply #624 on:** November 12, 2007, 10:16:58 AM »

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Sorry for swearing here, but I can't really think of a way of saying this that doesn't involve either swearing or a ridiculous amount of circumlocution. Id the current popular use of "tool" more or less equivalent to the established use of the word "dick"?

That's not quite it, I think. These are some of the definitions from urbandictionary.com:

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someone who tries too hard. a poser. one of those chic's who holds the sign saying "Carson Daly is Hot." the asstard who goes to a rock show because they heard one of the songs on the radio or mtv. or someone who insists on wearing velour sweat suits. Avril Lavigne.

Jane is a tool because she dresses like Avril Lavigne while listening to New Found Glory and Dashboard Confessional just becuase Carson Daly told her to.

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a fake person. someone does things to impress people

Someone who claims to be a coffee fanatic but only buys "frappacinos" from starbucks. People who go to TRL. People who listen to Good Charlotte. The members of Good Charlotte

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Someone who is easily manipulated by others, because they substitute the judgment and/or approval of others for their own. The others can be admired friends, strangers or potential mates whose approval the tool seeks. Especially in interpersonal situations, the tool will seek approval from the other, but fail to exercise their own judgment about whether the other person is good or right for them. Alternately, the tool will allow public figures, advertising, or other mass media to replace or form their own opinions on any number of subjects -- most evident in fashion and music choices (often fads or heavily marketed products of suspect quality or style). Somewhat less obvious are tools whose opinions on current events are parroted from sources thought by the tool to be reliably correct -- if you don't follow current events, or didn't come across the original source, you might not realize they hadn't actually given their opinion much thought beyond memorizing the highlights. The recurring theme is that the tool avoids using their own judgment, sometimes even failing to acquire an ersatz opinion; instead just seeking approval. The tool is an open field for anyone who would like to use them for their own purposes. When they choose very poorly, it is obvious to most that the tool has been manipulated and was foolish to have allowed it. Usually singular in actual usage, but sometimes phrases like 'tool shed' or 'hardware store' are used to refer to groups seen as clearly lacking common sense.

a) Did you hear that guy? "Brown is the new black"? What a tool.

b) That tool paid for her fancy dinners all over town for *at least two months* and only kissed her like once!

c) staff in a hotel: "Who rented out the Pacific Room this weekend?" "'Real Estate Riches' seminar, free admission." "Ha, that'll be a tool barn."