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Author Topic: The random etymology of the day  (Read 235453 times)

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Offline rivka

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1825 on: October 01, 2014, 10:16:31 AM »
Trying to find the origin of the phrase "Wake up and smell the coffee".

Ann Landers popularized it, but did she invent it?
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Offline BlackBlade

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1826 on: October 07, 2014, 10:28:31 AM »
So I wondered how "commute" had come to mean, reducing a ruling or decision, and also to travel to-and-fro on a regular basis.

Link. I enjoy trying to sort out in my head how it might have happened before looking it up. In this instance I had no clue, but after reading the explanation that seems so organic.
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1827 on: October 07, 2014, 10:41:10 AM »
Trying to find the origin of the phrase "Wake up and smell the coffee".

Ann Landers popularized it, but did she invent it?

I have no idea. Phrases can be pretty hard to track down.
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Offline rivka

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1828 on: October 07, 2014, 12:34:42 PM »
Indeed. I was hoping you would have better luck -- or better tricks -- than I did.
"Sometimes you need a weirdo to tell you that things have gotten weird. Your normal friends, neighbors, and coworkers won’t tell you."
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Offline Tante Shvester

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1829 on: October 23, 2014, 07:43:47 AM »
The word "gossip" comes from the word "godparents", because when a woman was giving birth, she'd be attended by her lady friends who would pass the time dishing.
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1830 on: October 23, 2014, 09:11:48 AM »
That's not quite right. It comes from the word godsibb, which means "godparents". (Sibb meant "relative" and is the same root as in sibling.)
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Offline Brinestone

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1831 on: October 29, 2014, 02:24:47 PM »
What's the deal with skirmish and scrimmage? Are they related? They sound Gaelic to me. Are they?
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1832 on: October 29, 2014, 02:27:20 PM »
My first thought was that skirmish at least sounded Scandinavian, but apparently it came from French, which borrowed it from Italian, which borrowed it from German. Scrimmage is indeed related—it's just an alteration of skirmish from the 15th century.
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Offline Noemon

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1833 on: November 14, 2014, 04:29:16 PM »
I'm interested in the etymology of the word "barrel". Etymology Online says that it comes from the 12th century Old French word "baril", and notes that the word has cognates in all Romance languages. This, to me, implies one of two things. Either the barrel was invented in the 12th century in a region where Old French was spoken, and the the technology spread from there to all other Romance language-speaking cultures, or there is an older word, probably in Latin, from which all of the languages got their word for barrel. Since barrel technology existed at least the better part of a millennia before the Old French word came into being, I'm guessing the latter. Can you shed any light on it?
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1834 on: November 14, 2014, 05:45:30 PM »
The OED says it goes back to Medieval Latin but is ultimately of unknown origin. The Romance languages certainly all inherited it from Latin, but it's not clear where Latin got it.
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Offline Noemon

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1835 on: November 14, 2014, 06:06:30 PM »
Interesting, thanks. I wonder why Etymology Online stopped with Old French.
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1836 on: November 14, 2014, 06:50:18 PM »
The OED does that a lot too. Sometimes they'll just say that something comes from Old French or Latin, and sometimes they'll take it all the way back to Proto-Indo-European. I don't get it.
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1837 on: November 20, 2014, 09:44:01 AM »
The literal meaning of the various parts of the brain, based on their etymology.

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Offline Tante Shvester

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1838 on: November 20, 2014, 09:51:27 AM »
The Latin names cracked me up when I learned them in anatomy class.  They actually have parts called "innominate" as in innominate vein, innominate artery, and innominate bone, which pretty much means, "We named this artery 'the artery with no name'".
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Offline pooka

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1839 on: November 24, 2014, 07:10:09 AM »
I don't think they had any inominates anymore, by this summer. Though I guess there's that chance they didn't get to any of those.  But they also were changing the names of a lot of things.  Like the corpora quadrigemina was being called the upper and lower colliculi, on the tectal plate. 
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1840 on: November 24, 2014, 09:13:07 AM »
From Peter Sokolowski on Twitter:

Quote
'Mariachi' comes from the French 'mariage'; when French ruled Mexico they hired local bands for celebrations.
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Offline Tante Shvester

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1841 on: November 24, 2014, 10:11:52 AM »
I don't think they had any inominates anymore, by this summer. Though I guess there's that chance they didn't get to any of those.  But they also were changing the names of a lot of things.  Like the corpora quadrigemina was being called the upper and lower colliculi, on the tectal plate. 

Yeah, they don't really use "inominate" anymore.  I still think it's a hot riot that someone thought to name the bone "the bone with no name".
Fighting thread drift with guilt, reverse psychology, and chicken soup.
Sweet! Law of Moses loopholes! -- Anneke
I love Bones.  -- Sweet Clementine
She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef. -- anonymous

Offline Tante Shvester

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1842 on: November 24, 2014, 10:12:55 AM »
I've been through the desert on an inominate horse.
Fighting thread drift with guilt, reverse psychology, and chicken soup.
Sweet! Law of Moses loopholes! -- Anneke
I love Bones.  -- Sweet Clementine
She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef. -- anonymous

Offline Annie Subjunctive

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1843 on: November 26, 2014, 12:21:20 PM »
I've been through the desert on an inominate horse.

Can I give this some points?
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Offline Annie Subjunctive

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1844 on: November 26, 2014, 12:22:02 PM »
The literal meaning of the various parts of the brain, based on their etymology.



This was funny, and reminded me a lot of reading about science in Chinese. Like a glacier is just an ice river. Of course it's an ice river.
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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1845 on: November 26, 2014, 12:58:02 PM »
German is pretty great that way too. Gloves are hand-shoes. Thimbles are finger-hats. Bats are flying mice.
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Offline Annie Subjunctive

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1846 on: November 26, 2014, 01:34:25 PM »
Europeans had to keep pretending that Latin and Greek were smarter ways to say things, though. I like that in Chinese I can read academic articles and they're actually easier to understand than everyday writing. Heaven knows that's not the case in English.
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Offline Tante Shvester

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1847 on: November 26, 2014, 01:53:29 PM »
German is pretty great that way too. Gloves are hand-shoes. Thimbles are finger-hats. Bats are flying mice.
I had the best time ever at that opera.
Fighting thread drift with guilt, reverse psychology, and chicken soup.
Sweet! Law of Moses loopholes! -- Anneke
I love Bones.  -- Sweet Clementine
She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef. -- anonymous

Offline Annie Subjunctive

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1848 on: November 26, 2014, 02:03:31 PM »
German is pretty great that way too. Gloves are hand-shoes. Thimbles are finger-hats. Bats are flying mice.
I had the best time ever at that opera.

Der Fingerhut?
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Offline pooka

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Re: The random etymology of the day
« Reply #1849 on: November 27, 2014, 09:11:30 AM »
Are socks foot gloves?
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