The random etymology of the day

[Jonathon]

That would be awesome, but unfortunately no.

[Annie Subjunctive]

Are socks foot gloves?

In Japanese, gloves are hand-bags. Socks are under-shoes.

[rivka]

Does thesaurus really mean treasure in Latin?

[Jonathon]

It looks like it actually meant "treasury or hoard", but yes. It's from a Greek word meaning "treasury" or "treasure". And it appears that the word treasure is from the same root, but with an inexplicable change to tr at the beginning.

[rivka]

 

(The wacky things you learn while reading the wikipage on the (fictitious) language of Alteran. )

[Annie Subjunctive]

I was trying to guess why cattle didn't have a singular form. I knew that it used to have a broader meaning than just cows, but what I didn't know until I looked it up was that it just meant "property," (which makes sense why it wouldn't have a singular) and is basically the same word as chattel. Interesting, huh?

[Jonathon]

This post (by erstwhile poster Goofy) just blew my mind: world comes from the Proto-Germanic wer 'man' + ald 'age'. Thus world originally literally meant 'age of man' and then came to mean 'human existence' or 'life on earth' before broadening to mean 'the known world' and 'the physical world'.

link

[Jonathon]

I was trying to guess why cattle didn't have a singular form. I knew that it used to have a broader meaning than just cows, but what I didn't know until I looked it up was that it just meant "property," (which makes sense why it wouldn't have a singular) and is basically the same word as chattel. Interesting, huh?

There are a lot more property = animals words. Fee comes from the Proto-Indo-European *peku 'cattle', and it also shows up in the beginning of fellowship (the state of laying down money with someone). The same root in Latin gives us words like pecuniary and peculiar (which originally meant 'of one's private property' and then came to refer to one's idiosyncrasies and eccentricities).

I also really like all the reborrowings from French like cattle and chattle. It's a nice demonstration of how language changes. The original /k/ became /tʃ/ before /a/ and eventually just /ʃ/, which you can see better in candle/chandler/chandelier.

[dkw]

This post (by erstwhile poster Goofy) just blew my mind: world comes from the Proto-Germanic wer 'man' + ald 'age'. Thus world originally literally meant 'age of man' and then came to mean 'human existence' or 'life on earth' before broadening to mean 'the known world' and 'the physical world'.

link

That makes sense with usage that I've run into that only conceptually-thinking beings have a "world," animals have only an environment. So without people there could be a universe and planet earth, but it's not a world until humans conceptualize it as such. Also "the world of the text" in interpretation and "world-building" in writing.

[Annie Subjunctive]

This post (by erstwhile poster Goofy) just blew my mind: world comes from the Proto-Germanic wer 'man' + ald 'age'. Thus world originally literally meant 'age of man' and then came to mean 'human existence' or 'life on earth' before broadening to mean 'the known world' and 'the physical world'.

link

So it wasn't a world until the Elves diminished and went into the West, huh?

[pooka]

Soul and Sol (French)?
Soul

"A substantial entity believed to be that in each person which lives, feels, thinks and wills" [Century Dictionary], Old English sawol "spiritual and emotional part of a person, animate existence; life, living being," from Proto-Germanic *saiwalo (cognates: Old Saxon seola, Old Norse sala, Old Frisian sele, Middle Dutch siele, Dutch ziel, Old High German seula, German Seele, Gothic saiwala), of uncertain origin.

Sometimes said to mean originally "coming from or belonging to the sea," because that was supposed to be the stopping place of the soul before birth or after death [Barnhart]; if so, it would be from Proto-Germanic *saiwaz (see sea). Klein explains this as "from the lake," as a dwelling-place of souls in ancient northern Europe.

via Solitude, sole

single, alone, having no husband or wife; one and only, singular, unique," late 14c., from Old French soul "only, alone, just," from Latin solus "alone, only, single, sole; forsaken; extraordinary," of unknown origin, perhaps related to se "oneself," from PIE reflexive root *swo- (see so).

so

Old English swa frequently was strengthened by eall, and so also is contained in compounds as, also, such. The -w- was eliminated by contraction from 12c.; compare two, which underwent the same process but retained its spelling. As an "introductory particle" [OED] from 1590s. Used to add emphasis or contradict a negative from 1913.

Really interesting in the sense of Buddhists  comparing the self to a wave on the sea.

[Jonathon]

The question is, how do you explain the phonological and semantic differences between *saiwalo and solus? The modern reflexes are homophonous, and it's easy to see how they could be semantically related, but I think the fact that they're less similar the further back you go is a sign that they're not related.

If etymology is like evolution, then I think of words like these as sharks and dolphins. They look a lot alike superficially, but it's really just coincidence.

[Annie Subjunctive]

I was thinking about "mango" today. In all the languages I know it sounds similar (Sp: mango, Fr: mangue, Jp: mango) but those are all languages from places that wouldn't have had mangos until recently so that makes sense. But what about Chinese? They can grow them in the southern areas and they're close enough to SE Asia to have had them for awhile. Their word is "mang guo," which sounds conveniently like "mango," but the "guo" part of the word means "fruit" so it's not necessarily said that way just to be phonetic.

So I looked up the English etymology and it's interesting but not particularly helpful in figuring out when and from whom Chinese got the word:

1580s, from Portuguese manga, from Malay mangga, from Tamil mankay, from man "mango tree" + kay "fruit." Mango trees were brought from Timor to British gardens in Jamaica and St. Vincent 1793 by Capt. Bligh on his second voyage.

I guess I'd just have to look up the Chinese etymology and that sounds pretty hard.

[Jonathon]

Wiktionary can be surprisingly helpful at times.

[Tante Shvester]

Why would coach mean an athletic trainer as well as a carriage?   And why are the coach seats on the airplane so torturous?

[pooka]

I figured it was because coachmen drive horses on a coach.  and I guess flying on an airplane is still a relative novelty for me, so the comfort of the seats never stood out except for when I was pregnant.  I also think American Airlines seats are smaller than Southwest.  But it may be that my dad bought the American Airlines seats and after 3 legs of travel comfort began to trump novelty.

[Jonathon]

Why would coach mean an athletic trainer as well as a carriage?   And why are the coach seats on the airplane so torturous?

Coach originally just meant a type of carriage and then was applied to other kinds of transportation, like railway coaches. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it began to be used as Oxford University slang in the 1830s for someone who tutors a student and thus carries them through an exam.

As for the seats on an airplane, I'm guessing it began as an industry euphemism. The travel and tourism industry always tries to make the cheap options sound better than they are.

[rivka]

And why are the coach seats on the airplane so torturous?

It's just living up to the name. Traveling by public coach in the 1800s was pretty darn torturous, and private coaches were only moderately better.

[Tante Shvester]

Why is wearing clothing without underpants beneath called "going commando"?

[Jonathon]

According to Wikipedia, the origins of the phrase are uncertain.

[Annie Subjunctive]

Because you don't have any support.

[sweet clementine]

oh hey!  It's time for my annual visit to the other wing of GC that I basically forget about the rest of the year. 

My friend just said she should use the word "vituperative" more often, and as I was looking it up in the OED I started wondering if it is at all related to "vitriol"....?

[Jonathon]

Apparently not. Vitriol was originally a chemical term (it comes from the Latin word vitreus, 'glass'), and it developed the current metaphorical sense based on the caustic properties of vitriol.

Vituperative comes from the Latin vituperare, from the roots vitium (the root of the word vice) and parare, meaning 'to prepare'. Thus it means 'to find fault'.

[rivka]

Interesting! I knew about vitreous, as in vitreous humor, and that it meant clear. (Didn't realize it meant glass, specifically.) Had no idea it was related to vitriol.

[Jonathon]

Yeah, me neither.