265: B and P Aug 30, 2015

Certain two phonemes are more similar than others. The letters 't' and 'd', for example, are more close in their respective sounds than that of a hard 'c' and an 'h'. The most similar pair of all the phonemes used in English are 'b' and a hard 'p', only differing by a few fractions of a millisecond in the end of their aspiration. The difference between their sounds is so minute that some animals, including dogs, cannot hear it, however, cats are able to distinguish between the two. The tiny difference is how 'description' (with a 'p') can be a sensible derivative of 'describe' (with a 'b').

264: S-functions Aug 29, 2015

'S' in the English language as a lot of different, and important functions. It forms possessive pronouns such as 'hers', 'ours', and somewhat related, it denotes possession in singular nouns, as well as in plural nouns not having a final '-s'. This use started from the Old English '-es', which was the masculine and neuter genitive singular ending, and now the apostrophe in something such as 'Mary's...' stands in place of an '-e-'. 'S' is also used in conjugating the third person singular of the present of verbs, which originates from the Old English way to conjugate verbs of the same person, number, and tense. 'S' also denotes the plurals of some nouns. This is due to the Old English plural ending '-as'.
For more on genitive endings, see this.

263: delight Aug 28, 2015

The sun or a candle may be delightful, but the 'light' in 'delight' has nothing to do with that. The word comes from Old French 'delitier' as a verb, and 'delit' as a noun. That word comes from the Latin word, 'delectare' which means ‘to charm’. The '-gh-' was added in the 16th century.

262: obligated versus obliged Aug 27, 2015

'Obligated' and 'obliged' look fairly similar; the two words are related. 'Obliged' comes from Middle English (in the sense ‘bind by oath’): ultimately from Latin 'obligare', which in turn derives from 'ob-' meaning ‘toward’ and 'ligare' ‘to bind’. 'Obliged' comes from late Middle English (as an adjective in the sense ‘bound by law’): from Latin obligatus, past participle of 'obligare'. The current adjectival use dates from the late 19th century. The difference between these two seemingly different words, is that originally, one was treated as a verb, and one was only treated as an adjective; now they are treated the same.

261: Degrees of Fanciness Aug 26, 2015

There is often more than one way to say something: that's how sellers of thesauri make money. Often the reason for having so many synonyms can be found by looking at the history of England. First, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes invade the island of England, creating Old English. Later, during the Viking raids, many Scandinavian words entered English. When Guillaume (or "William") the conqueror lay claim to England, French was the language of business and politics. During the 100 years war (which was 116 years long) England became more independently powerful, and Latin was the internationally used language for many fields. What happened culturally happened in the language with the denotation of various words; English derivatives are the most lay–least 'fancy'– way to say things, after those of Latin and French. The word, 'to ask' comes from Old English, while 'to question' comes from Old French, and "to interrogate" comes from Latin.

260: slogan Aug 25, 2015

'Slogan', is an alteration of the word 'slogorn' comes from a Scottish Gaelic phrase 'sluagh-ghairm' from the two separate words, 'sluagh' meaning 'army' and 'gairm' meaning 'cry'. Over time the meaning moved from military to commerce, however brief and catchy any use of a slogan may be.

259: theatre Aug 24, 2015

What does the theatre have to do with science‽–the link is perhaps unsurprisingly Greek. The word 'theorum' is the Latin version of the Greek word 'theorein', meaning 'to look'. That word is derived from the word 'theoros' which means 'spectator', and all of these words ultimately derive from the word 'thea' which means 'the act of seeing'. 'Thea' is the source of more words than that even, as it also gives the word 'theatre'.

258: obeisance Aug 23, 2015

'Obeisance' in the 1300's meant the same thing as 'obedience'. Anglo-French verb 'obeir', which means 'to obey' ('obeir is also where the word 'obey' originates). Every current sense of 'obeisance' existed in the 1300's, however the sense of 'obedience' has not lasted lo these centuries.

257: swansong Aug 22, 2015

Swans don't happen to sing, despite the myth of the swan singing one beautiful song before it dies. References in English of a swansong date back to as early as Chaucer, but only in the 1830's did the term 'swansong' appear in Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, in which he most likely based the word from the German, 'Schwanengesang' or 'Schwanenlied'

256: powwow Aug 21, 2015

Much like the Greek interpretation of non Graeco-Latin languages as the sound 'bar-bar', many European explorers of the Americas did not care much for the true pronunciation, nor even meaning of words. The word 'powwow' in English means "a conference or meeting for discussion, especially among friends or colleagues", but in Narragansett, the word 'powáw' means ‘magician’, more literally it means ‘he dreams’.

255: Messenger not Messager Aug 20, 2015

Often to indicate someone who does a given action in English, one simply needs to add an '-(e)r' or '-or'. There are some exceptions to that rule; over time people add sounds to make certain words easier to pronounce: someone who sends a message is not a 'messager', but a 'messenger', and the same applies to the word, 'passenger'.

254: satan lucifer and devil Aug 19, 2015

Rarely is there only one way to discuss something. The word 'Satan' derives from Hebrew 'śāṭān', literally meaning 'adversary', which comes from the Bible. The word 'Lucifer' comes from Old English, from Latin, meaning ‘light-bringing, morning star,’ from 'lux, luc-' meaning ‘light’ and '-fer' ‘bearing’. Originally a term to describe the planet Venus, the meaning has changed over time. The newest of the three terms, 'the Devil', comes from the Old English word, 'dēofol', through late Latin from Greek 'diabolo's which means ‘accuser, slanderer’, which–broken down–derives from 'dia' ‘across’ and 'ballein' ‘to throw’. This word was used in the Septuagint to translate Hebrew word 'śāṭān'.

253: less versus -less Aug 18, 2015

'Less' as a determiner, pronoun, or even adverb is slightly different to its form as a suffix, '-less'. '-Less' comes from the Old English '-lēas', which in turn comes from 'lēas' meaning ‘devoid of’.'Less has its own etymology: it derives from Old English, 'lǣssa', which is related to Old Frisian word, 'lēssa', from an Indo-European root shared by Greek 'loisthos' which means ‘last’.

252: Lackadaisical Aug 17, 2015

Often two words that sound the same are related through etymology and or meaning. 'Lackadaisic', however, has nothing to do with the flowers, daisies. It comes from mid 18th century interjection in the sense ‘feebly sentimental: from the archaic interjection, "lackaday, lackadaisy", and is related to the also archaic interjection, 'alack', which is also similar to 'alas'.

251: ravenous, ravage and raven Aug 16, 2015

The word 'ravenous' comes from late Middle English through Old French 'ravineus', from 'raviner' which means ‘to ravage’. The word is an adjectival form of the now-archaic verb, 'raven' which comes from the late 15th century (in the sense ‘take as spoil’). The word was based on Latin word, 'rapina' which means ‘pillage’.

250: Nihil Aug 15, 2015

This post is about nothing in particular. The Latin word, ‘nihil’ gives English a few words today. The ideology, nihilism, holds that nothing has any meanings; to reduce something to nothing is to ‘annihilate’ it; and not to forget ‘nil’ is nonexistent.

249: sabotage Aug 14, 2015

The first saboteurs, the most violent of whom were French, were angry about machines stealing jobs away from people. What it was that they did to break the machines was to throw shoes into them; specifically the saboteurs threw sabots–a kind of wooden shoe, into the machines–thereby giving it the name of 'sabotage'.

248: Mathematically Absolute Aug 13, 2015

There are a few words that are mathematically absolute, such as 'unique' 'perfect' or 'equal' and thereby cannot be modified with an emphatic adverb, such as 'certainly', 'very', 'really', or 'quite'. People don't always regard logical impossibilities when speaking, so phrases such as "pretty unique" are used.

247: mc, mac, dotter, warraq (papermaker) Aug 12, 2015

Names usually have roots somewhere, except for a select few which are just completely made up. 'Mc' and 'Mac' as a prefix both mean "son of...' and Scandinavian names often end in 'son' or 'dotter'. Some names were previously occupational such as 'Smith', or a common Arabic last name, "Warraq", which means 'papermaker', because during the European dark ages, when most books were composed of parchment, papyrus, or other materials, the far-advanced Middle East needed paper for all of its many libraries and bookstores.

246: persuasion Aug 11, 2015

The word 'persuasion' comes from the Latin 'persuasio(n-)', from the verb 'persuadere', which in turn comes from 'per-' meaning ‘through, to completion’ and 'suadere' which means ‘advise’. 'Suasion' comes from Latin 'suasio(n-)', from suadere' but it denoted the sense of ‘to urge’.