587: I Jul 17, 2016

Medieval manuscripts show that among the oldest words, in English were “I,” “we,” “two,” and “three” were some of the earliest. This makes “I” one of the shortest and oldest words in the English language. It is also the most commonly used word in English conversations. Nevertheless, 'the' is the most common word in written texts.

586: ostracize and oyster Jul 16, 2016

To ostracize someone now just means to exclude someone from a social circle, but the term was once more specific. In ancient Greece, people seen as dangerous to Greece could be forced into exile by vote, as was the democratic way. The vote would be cast on potsherds made usually of shell called 'ostrakon', from which the word gained its origin. As well, the English word for 'oyster' is related, thanks to the connection to shells, and not because of mollusk-banishment.

585: emu Jul 15, 2016

Words themselves have no intrinsic value or meaning, which is reason there is more than only one language, as well as the fact that a word can take on different meanings, and meanings can take on different words as time goes on. Even though the word 'emu' has always denoted large flightless birds since its creation, it has not always meant the same one. The word was originally the Portuguese 'ema', but referred to the cassowary of New Guinea. For a time afterwards, the word referred to the rhea of South America. Starting only in the 19th century was 'emu' in its current sense. 

584: phlegm Jul 14, 2016

Phlegm can come in a variety of colors such as white, green, or yellow. The word derives from Greek via French and Latin, from 'phlegein' meaning 'burn'. That Greek word is related to an English color through an Indo-European root, but it is not any of the 3 aforesaid colors; it is related to 'black'.

583: Slime Jul 13, 2016

The idea of slime is rather vague, and really anything damp or gooey could be considered such. Related words of other languages may have different meanings that as a sum are the same, but individually are more specific. The Modern German word, 'Schleim' means 'mucus' and unlike in English, this word is more formal enough to be used medically. The Latin word 'limus' which shares the Indo-European root means 'mud', and likewise the Greek equivalent means 'marsh'. 

582: coy and quiet Jul, 12, 2016

It is not uncommon to see that two words are derived of a same, older word. The cause of this can be one of many things, but usually it is the case that the two words entered the same language relatively independent. The word 'coy' entered Middle English meaning 'quiet, shy' as it does today from Anglo-French, 'quoi, qui, koi', which itself is ultimately from the Latin, 'quietus'. If you didn't already guess, that is the same root for 'quiet', but that word was created directly based off of the Latin instead.

581: mathematics Jul 11, 2016

'Mathematics' has a very specific meaning to most people now, and even the word may bring up ideas about numbers and other abstract symbols. The word did not have such a specific meaning in the past. Not only were all doctors considered the same, that is to say doctors of medicine and doctors of philosophy did not have such distinctions like they do today, but the word, 'mathematics' comes from the Latin "(ars) mathematica" meaning "mathematical (art)," which from Greek 'mathēmatikē (tekhnē)", from the root, 'manthanein' meaning ‘learn’ which was applied to many other fields.

580: highfalutin Jul 10, 2016

Plenty of words used in day-to-day speech originate from specific jargon. A couple of centuries ago, the Mississippi river proved to be useful for commerce, and as English-speakers and goods started flooding in, new words started to be created to accommodate the changing times. On the boats, the best and most expensive seats were at the top since they had the best view, but the problem was that the only was to go north in the river is by way of a steamship, and those ships had flutes at the top to let out smoke. So that the rich people didn't get covered in soot, tall smokestacks or high flutes were put in, thus giving us the word 'highfalutin' or 'highfaluting'. 

579: -Dom Jul 9, 2016

Although words and suffixes can change meaning over time, the general sense usually remains. The suffix '-dom' such as in 'kingdom' comes from the Old English meaning 'decree', but in the word 'fandom', it just denotes a relative domain. Of course, plenty of words are related as well. The Spanish and Italian title, 'Don' and more closely related, the Portuguese 'Dom' all come from the Latin, 'dominus' meaning 'master'. From here we get 'domain and perhaps 'domicile' as well. 'Fandom' is not, in this way, a product of only the root, and the suffix '-dom', but a product of all these ideas that are related from the vernaculars of different languages. 

578: Leeward and Lukewarm Jul 8, 2016

Most words in English and many other languages that belong to scientific jargon stem from Latin or Greek. For centuries, Latin and Greek were the lingua franca of European academia, and even today, most words that are created for scientific use are from those two languages. The words 'leeward' and 'lukewarm' are both special since they both come from Germanic origins, but had been used so frequently that they were appropriated into scholarly vernacular.

577: Official Languages Jul 7, 2016

The official language of a country does not always reflect the true demographics of the nation. Many countries only have one official language even if they have large populations of different ethnic groups. Some countries, such as Wales or Greenland, will change the official language in order to revitalize their respective native languages even if at first very few people speak it. Other countries, such as Belgium which has 3 official languages, French, Flemish, and German, will base the official languages off of tradition but not much reason. In Belgium, German is only spoken by around 1% of the population; more people there speak Arabic, but there is no official usage of it. 

576: philippines and filipino Jul 6, 2016

The somewhat confusing demonym of the Philippines is Filipino, with two fewer P's and one fewer H than the name of the country. Neither of those names are from the native language, Tagalog, which has been heavily influenced by Spanish and English. The earlier word for Filipino was 'Pilipino' but the name was changed later on to an F in order to create a stronger to make a connection to the European languages (Spanish and American English).

575: nonsensical Jul 5, 2016

English can seem nonsensical and unstructured language with its many exceptions and inconsistent spelling. Any way you look at it, this would seem true. In fact, not only does 'nonsensical' embody this as an adjective, but is a wonderful example. Any prefix, such as 'non' used to negate a word, has to be attached to some root, but alas, there is no such word 'sensical'. The reason for this is that the concept of 'nonsense' took on rather a life of its own, and the suffix 'ical' was added to make the adjectival form, whereas the adjectival for of 'sense', 'sensible' was taken directly from the Latin word 'sensibilis'.

574: excité Jul 4, 2016

The way to form the past (perfect) tense and/or participles in many languages is usually just with a prefix or a suffix on a verb-stem. Excusing exceptions, a common way to do this in English is with the '-(e)d'. The French way to do this is often with an 'é'. So in that was 'passé' means 'passed', 'décidé' means 'decided' and 'arrivé' means 'arrived'. All of these cognates hopefully make logical sense, since they were originally French words anyway. You might expect that 'excité' would therefore mean 'excited', which is sort of true, but it really means 'horny'. Although both words come from the same Latin root, we got words such as 'incite' and kinetic', while the French used it sexually.

573: Genus/Genos Jul 3, 2016

Anyone who has read The Book of Genesis would realize that humans are a great deal about 2 things: classifying, and families/tribes. This is fairly clear, as well, from the way that we use and create words. To make a list of words that are related to the Latin, 'genus' or Greek 'genos' meaning ‘birth, family, nation race or stock’ would be difficult to 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 (deriving from the verb 'generare', from 'genus'). Older words, such as 'genesis' come from that root, as well as newer words such as 'genocide' which was compounded in the 1940's. Even words from other languages have been created on the foundation of 'genos', such as the German, 'gene' which was created in the early 20th century. As well, grammatical gender comes from the French 'genre' (also where we get 'genre' from the earlier or ‘type or class (of noun)'. This list is just a smattering of the total amount of words to come from that root.

572: hippopotamus Jul 2, 2016

When languages need a new word to describe something that was unknown or had not existed for a long time, there are 2 ways of accomplishing this: the first is to take the existing word and adopt it from the original language, and the second is to create something new, usually from existing words. In the case of 'woodchuck' and 'groundhog', English-speakers did both (see Word Facts from February 2, 2015). However, in the case of 'hippopotamus', that word was invented from the Greek for "riverine horse" in order to describe the animal in Middle English.

571: It Was Me Jul 1, 2016

Basic grammar-skills are learned in infancy and early childhood and to (adult) native speakers it would be second nature. After years of knowing a language, certain things will feel wrong or out of place, such as hearing 'me' as the first word in a sentence, or 'I' as the last. It is for that reason that sentences like "he is smarter than me" or "it was me who made tea" might not make sense to a non-native speaker, since in both, 'me' is being used as the subject, but are generally understood in conversation. Some languages, such as German, though are not as lenient even colloquially, so "es war mich" (it was me) would not be automatically understood in the same way. The simple explanation for this is that the syntax of English words are determined by the position in a sentence, unlike German which has case-suffixes. For a refresher on case-endings, see Word Facts from June 25, 2016.

570: dwarf and pygmy Jun 30, 2016

To call someone a dwarf or a pygmy today would be quite offensive, and although it has never been known as a compliment, the ideas behind the words have changed considerably over time. Through the Renaissance, up until the end of the period in which people spoke late Middle English 'pygmy' was thought of as the race of small people from Greek mythology. These creatures only a foot or so long as well which we see from its origin 'pugmē' meaning ‘the length measured from elbow to knuckles’. 'Dwarf' has its roots in mythology, in this case coming from Nordic mythology, and today each Germanic languages has its own related word such as the Dutch 'dwerg' and German 'Zwerg'. It is not uncommon for words to come from myths since they have meaning to most people and can explain things that are otherwise difficult to put into newer words.

569: alas, lassitude, and lazy Jun 29, 2016

Alas, due to lassitude, I am too lazy to keep going with working.
Of course don't worry, that was a joke; Word Facts will continue on indefinitely. 'Alas', opposite to many other exclamations that incite action, comes from the cry "a' (ah) las" from the Anglo-French word meaning 'weary'. Ultimately 'las' is derived from the Latin, 'lassus' which is also the origin of 'lassitude'. That word, however, is more formal than its related synonym, 'lazy', which is newer to English, but is more colloquial as tends to be the case for words that come from Germanic origins.

568: adjourn and sojourn Jun 28, 2016

The Latin word 'jour' is useful to know for more than just being able to recognize what "soupe de jour' means The verb 'adjourn' comes from its Middle English word which means to ‘summon someone to appear on a particular day’ derived via the Old French 'ajorner', used in the phrase "a jorn (nome)" meaning ‘to an (appointed) day’. Because after the Norman invasion of England, (Norman) French and Picard were the languages for the law, many legal terms are from French or Latin roots. 'Sojourn' , which is not a legal term, comes through Middle English from the Old French, 'sojourner', based on Latin 'sub-' meaning 'during' or 'under' and the late Latin 'diurnum' for 'day'. If you remember from the post on Dec 6, 2015, 'jour-' and 'die', where we get 'journal' and 'diary' respectively comes from the same quite old word in Latin.'