507: 'ought' Pronunciation Apr 28, 2016

There are nine different ways to pronounce ‘ough’ in English, and there is no single reason for this complication. Often, words containing 'gh' evolved from a single glottal sound which exists in German as 'ch', and depending on the frequency of usage, and regional accents, the spelling was constant, but pronunciation diverged. In other cases, words were adopted from other languages with different spelling rules, or in the case of 'hiccoughed' the spelling was changed on purpose, but not to match any sound. You can visit the Cambridge Dictionary website to listen to the nine pronunciations. http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

506: Letters: E and S Apr 27, 2016

Some letters, like X, Y, or Z are used so infrequently that often they are grouped together at the end of dictionaries; other letters would be almost impossible to go without. E is the most commonly used letter in the English language, and there is little argument about whether this would differ between spoken and written word, as there are estimates that state that as high as 1-in-8 of all the letters written in English is E. Still, despite the overwhelming presence of E, more words begin with the letter ‘S’ than any other letter of the alphabet.

505: blink and belch Apr 26, 2016

Some words, generally simpler ideas, are necessary in any language and though they may change over time, they remain more or less the same, such as 'mother' 'tree' or 'yes'. It would seem that bodily functions must be on the list of simple things, but they can be deceptive. To blink is to shut, and reopen the eyes, but the word's early senses included ‘deceive,’ ‘flinch’ or quite specifically, ‘open the eyes after sleep’. The word itself was a Scots-variation of 'blench', which carried may of the same meanings, except for those of burping, as we think today.

504: damn versus damage Apr 25, 2016

The verb 'to damn' comes from Latin, which should not be a surprise given its biblical and Christian connotations. The Latin word from which 'damn' is derived is 'dam(p)nare' which means ‘inflict loss on,’ and ultimately comes from the participle, 'damnum' meaning ‘loss’. The original meaning is mostly lost (damned) at this point, but it is still retained in the other derivative, 'damage', which does not connote anything religious.

503: mastodons Apr 24, 2016

Mastodons are probably best known for their tusks, but that's not what paleontologists thought. 'Mastodon' comes from a compound of the Greek 'mastos' which means ‘breast’ and 'odous, odont-" which means ‘tooth’. Why breasts‽ It is a reference to tubercles on the crowns of the molars which the discoverer saw as nipple-shaped.

502: egg on Apr 23, 2016

To egg someone on could well have been an idiom started by farmers, but it had nothing to do with chickens or eggs themselves originally. To 'egg on' (someone) is a phrase going back to Old English, when there was a word 'eggian' which means 'to incite'.

501: casual versus casualty Apr 22, 2016

A workplace casual-Friday is undoubtedly better than casualty-Friday, but etymologically, there is not the same kind of difference. 'Casual' comes from late Middle English from the Latin, 'casus' which means ‘fallen’ as it used only to mean something that happened by chance or with irregularity (like falling). 'Casualty' is a derivative of 'casual', in the same, older sense of something accidental, and the '-ty'' was added from the pattern of words like 'penalty'.

500: Avail Apr 21, 2016

In Germanic languages, one can contract nouns together (with a hyphen in English), but in Romance languages, people tend to contract preposition-verb phrases. 'Avail' for example, comes from Middle English's obsolete 'vail' which means ‘be of use or value’. This word is related to 'valor' and is ultimately derived from the Latin 'valere' meaning ‘be strong’. Some believe that 'avail' was created on the pattern of pairs such as 'amount', was originally a verb. First, the contraction was Old French from amont meaning ‘upward,’ or more literally, ‘uphill’ coming from the Latin phrase 'ad montem' of the same meaning.

499: Pyrrhic Victory Apr 20, 2016

People take from Greek constantly in order to make new words. This is especially common for the sciences, though in the case of the humanities, scholars often draw from myth. A Pyrrhic victory is one won with such great consequences as to undermine the success. This phrase was coined in the late 19th century after king Pyrrhus who defeated the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC but whose army suffered irrevocable injury.

498: $ Apr 19, 2016

Although not considered a words (at least not in a morphological sense) doodles and symbols represent ideas in the same way. The $ is no exception. A common folk-theory is that it derives from the figure 8; the justification thereof is that it symbolizes the Spanish eight-bit currency. In fact, the symbol truly comes from a handwritten 'ps', or 'p^s' (if you consider computer notation) which was the abbreviation for 'peso' in Spanish-America.

497: Exit and Exeunt Apr 18, 2016

It is difficult to go to the cinema without hearing an announcement to check for the exits. This is not only safe, but lexically fitting. 'Exit', as well as 'exeunt' (such as Shakespeare's famous direction, "exeunt pursued by a bear" from A Winter's Tale) were first used as stage directions in the mid 16th century from Latin literally meaning ‘he or she goes out,’ in the third or. Through the 17th century, this word was adopted into every-day usage.

496: score Apr 17, 2016

Anyone familiar with the French grading-system or counting-system will know that French maths are not base-10 such as is the English custom, but base-20. It might seem then that the word 'score, such as in "four score and seven years ago" must be of French origin, mais non. The modern noun and verb go back to the Old English 'scoru' which denoted a ‘set of twenty,’ and is derived of the Old Norse word, 'skor' meaning ‘notch, or tally", usually of twenty.

495: Subconscious versus Unconscious Apr 16, 2016

'Subconscious' and 'unconscious' are similar in meaning, and synonyms informally, denoting in the lack of awareness or thought. The difference is in context. Most often, when referring to medical or scientific issues, unconscious is the preferable term, whereas 'subconscious' is more appropriate for psychological and most other situations.

494: punk Apr 15, 2016

'Punk' goes back to the time of Shakespeare; he even uses the word in All's Well that Ends Well, though in those days the word denoted a well-dressed whore. Later, the slang-term denoted a young, often gay, companion of an older hobo. In the twenties, the word came to mean a no-good youth, which is where Dave Marsh probably got his meaning when he coined the term in 1971.

493: porcelain Apr 14, 2016

'Porcelain' comes from the Italian word,'porcellana' meaning, ‘cowrie shell,’ because it is smooth. 'Porcellana' however comes from 'porcella' which means 'young sow', because people thought that cowrie shells resembled pig-vulva.

492: mornING, evenING, and gloamING Apr 13, 2016

Why do many of the different times of day end with "-ing"‽ The answer––like a good dinner party––begins with the evening. 'Evening' comes from the Old English 'ǣfnung' the infinitive of which is 'ǣfnian' meaning ‘approach evening,’ and ultimately is derived from 'ǣfen' meaning 'to make even', since the evening is a point of equal night and day. This makes 'evening' a conjugated verb (truly, a participle). The literary term 'gloaming' was formed from the Old English 'glōm' ('twilight) for the same reason. 'Morning' was until recently commonly called 'morn', but by the same pattern as 'evening' people started to add the '-ing'. 'Morn', 'even', and 'eve' all are still words though rarely used.

491: myriad Apr 12, 2016

People talk about things in vague terms for unspecified amounts, such as the adjectives 'few' 'several' 'many' 'umpteen' and the nouns 'a bunch' or 'a myriad'. If you noticed something fishy about that list, you're in the minority. 'Myriad' is used to mean "countless", but it comes from the ancient Greek 'murioi' which means 10,000, and is still used in combinations to make larger numbers.

490: Catullus 16 Apr 11, 2016

In English, it is difficult to talk about sex. Disregarding any taboos, English is grammatically limiting the verbs we use. Either one could use a transitive verb (one that takes a direct object) which are usually seen as vulgar with a few fairly uncommon exceptions, or one could use an intransitive verb, usually "has sex with", but that is cumbersome and not so direct. This was not the case in all languages. Latin contains plenty of these verbs such as in the infamous line so vulgar it was not published in English until the late 20th century, in Catullus 16:
"Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo"
Which very roughly could be translated as:
"I will sodomize and orally-copulate you [both]"

489: lax versus relax Apr 10, 2016

If one were to read something and then reread it, she would have read it at least twice. 'Lax' and 'relaxed' are not subject to the order in time, which would be difficult to justify simply on the basis that 'lax' is an adjective. That word comes from late Middle English when it meant ‘loose,’ often in terms of one's bowels, and ultimately is derived from Latin 'laxus'. The only difference is that the 're-' expresses intensity.

488: sos Apr 9, 2016

A number of theories have come up around the meaning of the initialism, S.O.S.,such as "save our ship", "save our souls", or "send out succor". All of these are fairly unlikely given that the true origin is German, dating back to 1905. In truth, S.O.S. is not short for any phrase, but was used because it is easily transmitted in Morse code, as · · · – – – · · ·, and pretty easy to remember.