145: otherwise May 2, 2015
Contractions in English are usually easily separated into their
components. The word 'otherwise' is a contraction of what would look
like, and in fact is, "other+wise"; nevertheless, when thought about it
does not seem to make much sense: where does 'wise' fit in‽ One archaic
usage for ‘wise’ was “the manner or extent of something”; this is
related in origin to the word 'wit' and it is from this definition of
‘wise’ where the phrase “in no wise” comes.
144: may May 1, 2015
May everyone have a pleasant May. The word 'May' comes from the Latin
phrase 'Maius mensis' which "means month of the goddess Maia". This is
not the only English word to come from 'mensis', which means 'month',
it is also where the word 'menses' comes from.
143: profuse Apr 30, 2015
Word Facts offers profuse apologies for its recent slacking.
Just teasing, Word Facts is ever excellent (simply trying to include today's word in a sentence). The word 'profuse' means "exuberantly plentiful", but it used to mean "poured out or given freely, often to the point of exaggeration or excess". Although this definition is not extremely different, it makes the reasoning easier to understand when looking at the derivation: this word comes from the Latin 'pro-' meaning ‘forth’, and 'fundere' which means ‘to pour.'
Just teasing, Word Facts is ever excellent (simply trying to include today's word in a sentence). The word 'profuse' means "exuberantly plentiful", but it used to mean "poured out or given freely, often to the point of exaggeration or excess". Although this definition is not extremely different, it makes the reasoning easier to understand when looking at the derivation: this word comes from the Latin 'pro-' meaning ‘forth’, and 'fundere' which means ‘to pour.'
142: kindred and thunder Apr 29, 2015
Speaking words, and as a consequence spelling, changes words over time
for ease of the speaker. This can be seen in the words 'kindred' and
'thunder', which did not always have the letter 'd' in the middle of
those words. 'Thunder' comes from the Old English 'thunor', and
'kindred' comes from Middle English, combining 'kin' and '-red' ('-red'
comes from Old English 'rǣden').
141: kerfuffle Apr 28, 2015
Certain words are more difficult to confirm the derivation for than
others, namely words from languages lacking many written records, if
any, before the last few centuries. The word 'kerfuffle' either derives
from the Scots word, 'curfuffle' which may, although not certainly, come
from Scottish Gaelic, 'car', meaning ‘twist, bend’ combined with the
onomatopoetic Scots word 'fuffle' which means 'to disorder'. 'Kerfuffle'
could also be related to Irish "cior thual" which means 'confusion,
disorder'.
140: lewd Apr 27, 2015
Following yesterday's Word Facts post, the word 'lewd' comes from Old
English, 'lǣwede'. The original sense meant "belonging to the laity
(people distinct from the clergy)" and in Middle English, the meaning
had become "belonging to the common people," essentially "vulgar". The
later the word was used to mean "worthless, vile, or evil", which led
to the current sense of "crude and offensive in a sexual way".
138: "for all intensive purposes" Apr 25, 2015
Language changes and evolves by the day. Phrases such as 'for all
intents and purposes' become written by many as 'for all intensive
purposes', and loath though grammatical traditionalists are to admit,
this is unstoppable.
Post in the comments either your favorite or least favorite modern evolutionary step in the English language, be it standard or nonstandard.
Post in the comments either your favorite or least favorite modern evolutionary step in the English language, be it standard or nonstandard.
139: layman Apr 26, 2015
The term 'layman' is now used to discuss the common-people, those
without specialized knowledge in a particular field, but this was not
always the meaning. The word was originally intended for reference to
those whom do not belong to the clergy. The reason for saying layman was
because members of the clergy cannot have sex; they cannot lay. A
layman is a layman not because he is lying all day, but because he has
the ability to be laying all day.
137: Of and Off Apr 24, 2015
Words in English commonly have unruly, and down-right ridiculous
standardized spellings, but often there is a reason for such lunacy. The
words 'of' and 'off' look similar, but their pronunciations do not seem
to correspond exactly with their spelling. This is because these two
words used to be spelled the same in Old English, but for the purpose of
differentiation, the 'f' was added.
136: revere Apr 23, 2015
Is it better for a leader to be feared or loved‽ For this philosophical
question, grammar offers some aid. The word 'revere' comes from the
Latin verb 'revereri', which is derived from the prefix 're-' which is
used for expressing intensive force, and 'vereri' which means, ‘to
fear'.
135: nail Apr 22, 2015
The word 'nail' comes the Old English word 'nægel'. That word is, being
Old English, of Germanic origin, and is related to Dutch 'nagel', and
German word 'nagel'. Those two words are also related to the Latin for
'nail', 'unguis' and Greek, 'onux' even though these four words do not
all sound terribly similar to each other. The way this is possible is
that all four of these words are derived from a shared Indo-European
root, and is the reason why the words all have an 'n' sound at the
beginning.
134: honcho Apr 21, 2015
English is nothing if not collection of words and phrases taken from
other languages. This happens especially with informal terms, such as
the phrase "honcho", commonly used as "head honcho". This term came to
English in the 1940's, from Japanese word 'hanchō' which means ‘group
leader’. This term was brought back to the United States by servicemen
stationed in Japan during the occupation after WWII.
133: Ph and F Apr 20, 2015
There are quite a number of oddly spelled words in English, with silent
letters up the wazoo and, vowels each having many different possible
sounds, and the word 'phlegm' is certainly no exception. This word came
to Middle English from the French word, 'fleume'. The reason that
'phlegm' has the silent 'g' and a 'ph' rather than the 'f', like in the
French spelling is because the spelling was changed in the 16th century
due to due to association with the Latin word, 'phlegma' which meant
‘clammy moisture’, and from Greek 'phlegma' which meant ‘inflammation’.
132: curfew Apr 19, 2015
The word curfew came to Middle-English from the French word, 'cuvrefeu'
which is derived from the French words 'cuvrir' which means 'to cover'
and 'feu', 'fire', because 'cuvrefeu' originally denoted a bell, which
would ring signalling the regulation which required people to put-out
fires at certain hours of the evening. The modern sense came around the
late 1800's, with more and more institutionalized fire-fighting.
131: hot and heat Apr 18, 2015
With the movement deeper and deeper into spring each day, keep cool
everyone. The words 'heat' and 'hot' both sound and sound similar, which
is because the words are related; the meaning of heat is "the state of
being hot". Even though these words are related in Modern English, their
derivations are different: 'heat' comes from the Old English noun,
'hǣtu', which in turn comes from the verb 'hǣtan', whereas 'hot' comes
from the Old English word 'hāt', which is not related to 'hǣtu'.
130: stereotype Apr 17, 2015
The words 'stereotype' and 'cliche' comes from French typesetter jargon.
'Stereotype' comes from the French, 'stéréotype', a printing plate cast
in a mold made from composed type or an original plate. To stereotype
something, was to copy it again and again, which is where the sense of
oversimplifying a group of people comes. 'Cliche' comes from the French
onomatopoeic word 'cliché', mimicking the sound of the printing presses
which was used to mean stereotype (as in printing), and then, relating
to the repetition of printing the exact same thing many times in a row,
meant, as it does today, something "that is overused and betrays a lack
of original thought"
129: Lot Apr 16, 2015
The word 'lot' can function as a pronoun, noun, adverb, and verb, but
the adverbial usage of 'lot' does not act the same as the other three.
Using 'lot' as an adverb needs to be either 'lots' or 'a lot', but can
never simply 'lot'. The reason for this is simple; as an adverb, 'lot'
is informal, whereas the other functions are used more formally.
128: willy-nilly Apr 15, 2015
The phrase 'willy-nilly' is a common phrase, but sounds rather as if it
were made up by a child. This was not always the case. 'Willy-nilly'
comes from the 17th century phrase, "will I, nill I" which meant "I am
willing, I am unwilling", and would be used to convey, like it does
today, something happening whether one likes it or not .
127: Without Apr 14, 2015
The word 'without' today means lacking, and often there are occasions in
speech in which it makes to use the opposite word, 'within', but not
the word 'without'. In English, now, there are more functions of
'within' than 'without', but this used to not be the case. 'Within' can
be used as a preposition or an adverb, while 'without' can only be used
as a preposition (meaning lacking), however, there are archaic functions
of 'without', in which it could be used as a conjunction, an adverb,
and a preposition in the sense of location ("he was without the house,
therefore, standing outside").
126: or and nor Apr 13, 2015
The words 'or' and 'nor' look and sound similar, as do 'either' and
'neither' however not all of these words are related to each other. Both
'either' and 'neither' are related to the Old English word 'hwæther'
which meant 'whether'. In fact, the origin of both of these words is
from a contraction. 'Either', derives from 'ǣgther', which was a
contracted form of 'ǣg(e)hwæther', and 'neither' derives from and
'nawther', a contraction of 'nāhwæther'. 'Nor' is simply a reduced
version of 'nawther', but 'or' did not come from 'ǣgther', it came from
the conjunction, 'oththe' which meant 'other'.