Author Topic: The random etymology of the day (Read 222427 times)

Jonathon · « **Reply #1950 on:** October 18, 2016, 09:40:56 AM »

The egg in egg on isn't the egg that a chicken lays—it's an Old Norse borrowing that's cognate with the English word edge. The sense 'to incite, to provoke' is a metaphorical extension of the more literal 'to give an edge to, to sharpen' sense.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1951 on:** October 19, 2016, 09:28:33 AM »

Huh. I guess if I give that post an ovation, you're going to tell me that doesn't mean I should throw eggs at it.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1952 on:** December 02, 2016, 08:49:15 AM »

Like (the multipurpose verb, noun, adjective, adverb, conjunction, and preposition) and lich (meaning "corpse") are cognate. They ultimately come from a Germanic root meaning "body, form; like, same", and they obviously diverged pretty wildly from there. The suffix -ly, used to form adverbs and adjectives, comes from a reduced form of like.

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rivka · « **Reply #1953 on:** December 02, 2016, 10:28:12 AM »

Jonathon · « **Reply #1954 on:** December 13, 2016, 02:52:04 PM »

There is no bread in gingerbread, at least etymologically speaking. It comes from Medieval Latin gingimbratus by way of the French gingembras, meaning 'gingered'. It eventually turned into gingerbread by way of folk etymology.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1955 on:** December 14, 2016, 08:59:52 AM »

There is no bread in sweetbreads and no meat in sweetmeats.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1956 on:** December 16, 2016, 10:11:10 AM »

*mind blown*

Jonathon · « **Reply #1957 on:** December 16, 2016, 10:14:25 AM »

Today in totally transparent etymologies that I somehow failed to see: Offal simply comes from off + fall, apparently from the notion of it being the stuff that falls off the butcher's block.

rivka · « **Reply #1958 on:** December 16, 2016, 10:18:08 AM »

That's hilarious, and absolutely the sort of thing that if some random person told me I would suspect of being a folk etymology.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1959 on:** December 16, 2016, 10:47:32 AM »

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1960 on:** December 21, 2016, 07:24:35 AM »

Shampoo is from the Hindi word for massage.

Odd that so many massage parlors do not have the reputation for being squeaky clean.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1961 on:** December 21, 2016, 07:25:27 AM »

Quote from: Jonathon on December 16, 2016, 10:14:25 AM

Today in totally transparent etymologies that I somehow failed to see: Offal simply comes from off + fall, apparently from the notion of it being the stuff that falls off the butcher's block.

When I was a kid, I assumed it was spelled "awful", and did not understand why just the name of it wasn't warning everyone away.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1962 on:** December 21, 2016, 08:53:40 AM »

I thought I had posted this sometime before, but I can't find it now.

Neuter and neither are cognates. They come from the Latin ne + uter and Old English ne + hwæþer, meaning "not which of two". Hwæþer is the Old English form of whether, and uter and hwæþer both trace back to the Proto-Indo-European *kʷóteros, from *kʷós, meaning "which, what", plus some sort of adjectival suffix.

In some languages this *teros suffix became a marker of comparative adjectives, some of which evolved into words like inter or under; a means of forming possessive pronouns (such as the Latin noster); or a means of forming words meaning "second" or "other", such as alter or other.

Ela · « **Reply #1963 on:** January 04, 2017, 09:45:57 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on December 16, 2016, 10:14:25 AM

Today in totally transparent etymologies that I somehow failed to see: Offal simply comes from off + fall, apparently from the notion of it being the stuff that falls off the butcher's block.

That's a surprising one. And funny.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1964 on:** January 11, 2017, 09:54:53 AM »

Today's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal got me thinking about the etymology of stool. Stool originally meant 'seat', especially a seat of authority or a throne. But then it came to mean a simpler seat without arms or back. Eventually it came to mean a seat enclosing a chamber pot, then the act of using a chamber pot, and then the product of using a chamber pot. So stool 'seat' and stool 'bowel movement' are etymologically the same word. It's interesting that the latter didn't push out the former.

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Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1965 on:** January 11, 2017, 10:14:53 AM »

It was the latter that was pushed out.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1966 on:** January 11, 2017, 10:22:02 AM »

Saxon75 told me on Twitter that he was torn between congratulating me on that joke and wanting me to be ashamed of myself.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1967 on:** January 13, 2017, 07:12:32 AM »

The Etymology Online site has the most delightful list of synonyms under its listing for cunt:

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Under "MONOSYLLABLE" Farmer lists 552 synonyms from English slang and literature before launching into another 5 pages of them in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. [A sampling: Botany Bay, chum, coffee-shop, cookie, End of the Sentimental Journey, fancy bit, Fumbler's Hall, funniment, goatmilker, heaven, hell, Itching Jenny, jelly-bag, Low Countries, nature's tufted treasure, penwiper, prick-skinner, seminary, tickle-toby, undeniable, wonderful lamp, and aphrodisaical tennis court, and, in a separate listing, Naggie. Dutch cognate de kont means "a bottom, an arse," but Dutch also has attractive poetic slang ways of expressing this part, such as liefdesgrot, literally "cave of love," and vleesroos "rose of flesh."

Jonathon · « **Reply #1968 on:** January 19, 2017, 10:34:22 AM »

Cloud originally meant 'hill; mass of rock or earth'. At some point in Middle English people started calling those things in the sky clouds because they look like big hills or masses of water vapor. (The Old English word for 'cloud' was weolcan, which is cognate with the modern German Wolke.)

Cloud is also related to the word clod, which was originally a variant form of the word clot, which meant a lump or mass of something that had conglomerated or congealed. These words are also related to clay and trace back to the Proto-Indo-European root *glei-, meaning 'clay' and also forming words meaning 'to stick together'.

Some other words that come from this root are cleave (the one meaning 'stick together', not the homophonous but antonymous word meaning 'split apart'), clam (originally meaning a thing that stuck fast and later a specific kind of shellfish), climb (from the notion of sticking or holding fast to the thing being climbed), clamp (which arose as a variant form of the old past-tense form of climb, clamb), glue, gluten, glia (the cells that act as the glue of the nervous system), and colloid (because elements in a colloid are "stuck" together).

Ela · « **Reply #1969 on:** January 19, 2017, 12:15:33 PM »

Interesting!

rivka · « **Reply #1970 on:** January 19, 2017, 05:16:18 PM »

Indeed.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1971 on:** February 07, 2017, 09:04:14 AM »

Minestrone, the tasty vegetable soup, comes from the same root as minister, because you administer a bowlful of it at mealtime.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1972 on:** February 07, 2017, 09:07:41 AM »

Huh. I had no idea, but apparently it's true. It's from the same root as minister, obviously, so the original meaning was something like "that which is served".

rivka · « **Reply #1973 on:** February 07, 2017, 09:46:05 AM »

*mind blown*

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1974 on:** February 07, 2017, 02:33:41 PM »

I know. Of all the soups that I know, I wonder why that one was the one chosen to be administered.

Then again, of all the creatures that can fly, why did "fly" get that name.