The random etymology of the day

[Jonathon]

The words firm (referring to a business partnership) and farm are related; they both ultimately come from the Latin firmus, meaning firm or stable. This led to the verb firmāre, meaning to make firm or to affirm and thus to sign. Firm was borrowed from Italian or German in the 18th century. I'm not sure if firm came to refer to businesses because they were based on legal documents requiring signatures or because the name of the business was considered the signature.

Farm was borrowed four centuries earlier from the French form ferme. (Some historical sound changes in English changed /ɛr/ to /ar/ in some cases, creating variations like clerk/clark and person/parson and wacky spellings like sergeant and heart.) It originally meant a fixed payment in rent or taxes and then a piece of land rented out. By the 1500s it had come to mean a piece of land rented out for cultivation. Eventually it lost the sense of being leased and came to refer any land used for cultivation.

[rivka]

Interesting!

[Jonathon]

Farm sounds like such a plain, earthy word that I never would have guessed that it originated as a French legal term.

[Jonathon]

By the way, I was inspired by Tante's question here. The firm in law firm really is related to the word firm meaning the opposite of squishy.

[rivka]

Farm sounds like such a plain, earthy word that I never would have guessed that it originated as a French legal term.

Agreed.

By the way, I was inspired by Tante's question here.

I assumed.

[Brinestone]

That's really cool!

[Annie Subjunctive]

The interesting thing, though, is that ferme still means farm in French. So I wonder if they both evolved the meaning independently or if one borrowed it from the other.

[BlackBlade]

The OED's listing for "precarious" was quite interesting.

Link.

I've certainly used it as a synonym for uncertain without the realization of the unique flavor it's supposed to have. It's relationship to prayer really makes that definition clear. Indeed, you might say that just about anything we ask God for becomes precarious.

[Jonathon]

That is interesting. Thanks for sharing!

The interesting thing, though, is that ferme still means farm in French. So I wonder if they both evolved the meaning independently or if one borrowed it from the other.

I'd guess that they kept borrowing new senses from French.

[Brinestone]

This seems like it's totally obvious, but are ranch and range related? One of my cousins just emailed a family letter telling about their new home on the ranch, and it got me thinking.

[Jonathon]

Huh. I don't know if I ever would have connected the two, but apparently they are. Ranch comes from the Spanish rancho, which was borrowed from the Old French verb ranger. This was borrowed into English as the verb and noun range.

[Jonathon]

I recently learned that the word outrage does not come from out + rage, as it obviously appears to. It's from the French outre 'beyond' + -age. It originally meant 'excess' but came to mean an especially harmful or criminal excess. It was also originally pronounced /'aut-rɨdʒ/, with a reduced vowel in the second syllable (basically like outage but with an r in the middle). But through folk etymology—and the influence of the adjective form outrageous, which does have a full vowel in the second syllable—the pronunciation and meaning changed.

[Porter]

What is the relationship between stick (from a tree) and sticky?

[Jonathon]

The original root apparently meant something like "pierce" or "prick". This developed into the sense of transfixing or fastening, because you can stick things together by pinning them. (The word stitch is related.) From there it evolved into other ways of making things stay together, as with glue or some other adhesive, hence sticky. I suppose the "twig" sense developed because sticks are things that can pierce or prick, though the Online Etymology Dictionary is a little vague on that.

[Tante Shvester]

It reminds me of my son's joke:

What's brown and sticky?

A stick.

[BlackBlade]

It reminds me of my son's joke:

What's brown and sticky?

A stick.

I tested this on Tiffany. It annoyed her that she found it amusing at all.

[Dobie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNyMxwW8r1Q&t=5m20s

[pooka]

Not clicking!

[Annie Subjunctive]

Not clicking!

It's just a funny elaboration on the previous joke.

[Annie Subjunctive]

Meanwhile, what's brown and rhymes with Snoop?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dr. Dre

[rivka]

http://takeourword.blogspot.com/2014/02/origins-of-some-words-we-dont-use-much.html

[Porter]

The original root apparently meant something like "pierce" or "prick". This developed into the sense of transfixing or fastening, because you can stick things together by pinning them. (The word stitch is related.) From there it evolved into other ways of making things stay together, as with glue or some other adhesive, hence sticky. I suppose the "twig" sense developed because sticks are things that can pierce or prick, though the Online Etymology Dictionary is a little vague on that.

Fascinating.  Thanks!

It reminds me of my son's joke:

What's brown and sticky?

A stick.

That joke is why I asked the question.

(Oh, and that's my joke. )

[Tante Shvester]

That's fine.  Just as long as no one thinks it's my joke.  

[BlackBlade]

Honcho as in "head honcho" is a loan word from Japanese, picked up by American servicemen during WWII. I think that's neat!

[Annie Subjunctive]

I like when I realized that "chop chop" was Cantonese.