Author Topic: The random etymology of the day (Read 237761 times)

Jonathon · « **Reply #1900 on:** January 28, 2016, 03:43:24 PM »

The OED isn't much more help. It says the Old Norse word may have come from the Irish calpa, which I think makes more sense than a connection to a baby cow. But it's probably one of those things where there just isn't enough documentation to ever make a sure connection.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1901 on:** February 03, 2016, 06:54:35 AM »

Stationery, like the paper you write a letter on, is so named because back in the day, retailers were itinerant peddlers who sold stuff off a cart when they came to your town. An exception was bookstores, which were found on university campuses. So instead of getting your paper an quills and ink and books and the like from the mobile peddler who came to you, you'd take yourself to a stationary shop.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1902 on:** February 03, 2016, 11:34:31 AM »

More specifically, stationery is something that came from a stationer, or someone who operated a station. That's why there's a spelling difference between stationery and stationary. They have the same root but different suffixes.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1903 on:** February 07, 2016, 09:55:58 AM »

It's called punctuation because you are puncturing the text with little dots.

Farmgirl · « **Reply #1904 on:** February 09, 2016, 07:42:29 PM »

Quote from: Tante Shvester on February 07, 2016, 09:55:58 AM

It's called punctuation because you are puncturing the text with little dots.

ftw

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1905 on:** February 09, 2016, 09:06:48 PM »

No, really.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1906 on:** February 09, 2016, 09:55:08 PM »

Well, I wouldn't say you're puncturing the text—not literally, anyway. You're just marking with points.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1907 on:** February 10, 2016, 08:16:15 AM »

You're planning to soberificate all my etymologies, aren't you?

Jonathon · « **Reply #1908 on:** February 10, 2016, 08:38:55 AM »

*resists*

Keith · « **Reply #1909 on:** February 10, 2016, 11:21:57 AM »

I was wondering about the relationship between "aspirate" - to breathe - and "aspire" - to hope for or seek after.

From what I've found using online dictionaries, the latter comes from the idea of "panting after" something. Which is kind of a funny image in contrast with the typical connotations of aspire.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1910 on:** February 10, 2016, 11:47:45 AM »

Yeah, it's definitely related. The development of senses in Latin was apparently something like "to breathe upon" > "to breathe desire towards" > "to desire".

Related words include expire ("to breathe out; to die"), inspire ("to breathe into; to give ideas or motivation to"), perspire ("to breathe through; to pass out as a vapor; to give off through pores"), and spirit ("breath; breath of a god; breath of life; life; ghost").

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1911 on:** February 16, 2016, 02:09:58 AM »

Snorkel comes from the same German as snore, because a snorkel is like a big, noisy nose.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1912 on:** February 17, 2016, 11:16:39 AM »

Arctic comes from the Greek "bear" because the Great Bear constellation (Ursa Major) is in the northern sky (and includes the North Star). So how cool is it that there are Arctic polar bears?

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1913 on:** February 18, 2016, 06:21:48 AM »

Unlike blueberries, which get their name from the color, oranges aren't named for their color. The color is named after the fruit. Before they were widely enough propagated that people were familiar with what they looked like, there just wasn't a good name for that color. They called it "yellow-red" or, later, "saffron".

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1914 on:** February 18, 2016, 03:50:16 PM »

In old Japanese, blue and green was the same color. There was just one word for both (though of course, you could differentiate shades of it and say whether it was more like the ocean or more like a forest). Their word for "green" is of more recent origin. Also, traffic lights there are still called ao, which in most senses means blue. It's weird for a foreigner when the little robot voice tells you the light has turned blue. For more reasons than there being a robot voice to tell you that the light has changed.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1915 on:** February 18, 2016, 03:52:01 PM »

You can also tell a really great joke in Japanese if you want to.

"What is Michael Jackson's favorite color? Ao!"

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1916 on:** February 21, 2016, 01:04:22 AM »

Squids are called squids because they squirt (ink).

Jonathon · « **Reply #1917 on:** March 10, 2016, 12:10:16 PM »

I guess I always assumed that litmus must be a Latin borrowing, but apparently it's from either a Middle Dutch or Old Norse word meaning something like "dye moss".

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1918 on:** March 10, 2016, 12:21:29 PM »

Cool.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1919 on:** April 06, 2016, 09:07:23 AM »

I just looked it up, and apparently, Oregon the state has nothing in common with oregano the herb. I was telling my son that oregano grows in Oregon, and he challenged me on that.

It turns out that you can grow it there, but that doesn't make it named for the state, or the state named for the herb. You can grow oregano pretty much anywhere.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1920 on:** April 06, 2016, 09:00:40 PM »

We were thinking of foods that are named for places, like Lima beans, Jerusalem artichoke, tangerines, Brussels sprouts, Yorkshire pudding, and he challenged me on oregano.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1921 on:** April 07, 2016, 12:34:41 PM »

Turkey is one of those, though an erroneous one. In French, the word for the bird turkey means "chicken from India," which is equally erroneous.

Turquoise, on the other hand, means Turkish in French.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1922 on:** April 07, 2016, 12:35:22 PM »

Quote from: Tante Shvester on April 06, 2016, 09:00:40 PM

We were thinking of foods that are named for places, like Lima beans, Jerusalem artichoke, tangerines, Brussels sprouts, Yorkshire pudding, and he challenged me on oregano.

How about hamburgers, frankfurters and weiners?

rivka · « **Reply #1923 on:** April 07, 2016, 02:05:21 PM »

Quote from: Annie Subjunctive on April 07, 2016, 12:34:41 PM

In French, the word for the bird turkey means "chicken from India," which is equally erroneous.

It is the same in modern Hebrew.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1924 on:** April 07, 2016, 02:32:25 PM »

Quote from: rivka on April 07, 2016, 02:05:21 PM

Quote from: Annie Subjunctive on April 07, 2016, 12:34:41 PM
In French, the word for the bird turkey means "chicken from India," which is equally erroneous.
It is the same in modern Hebrew.

Everyone in the world is confused about where turkeys come from!

Except for Asians. Chinese just call them fire chickens and the Japanese call them seven-faced birds.