757: Sophisticate and Adulterate Jan 3, 2017

Just by luck, certain words get used less than others, lose definitions, or have more-used forms. 'Sophisticate' is the verb from which the participle, 'sophisticated' is create, but at its most frequently used, in 1968, it only accounted for around 0.00001% of all words used, meanwhile in 1987, 'sophisticated' accounted for more than 0.00212%. Likewise 'adulterate', compared to 'adultery', has existed in a similar shadow. Perhaps fittingly, both verbs have historically had quite similar senses, and until 'adultery' replaced the earlier, 'avoutrie', the verbs were more or less interchangeable. For more on 'sophisticated' and its change in meaning over time, click this link.

756: beleaguer Jan 2, 2017

Though often used to refer to every-day matters, 'beleaguer' or more often its participle, 'beleaguered' was once solely a military-term, originally from the Dutch, 'belegeren'. In the late 16th century, Sir John Smyth wrote of English soldiers, "they will not vouchsafe in their speeches or writings to use our ancient terms belonging to matters of war, but do call a camp by the Dutch name". The camp in question is the Dutch term, 'leaguer' ultimately originating from 'leger' meaning 'to build'. Despite Smyth's vexation, 'beleaguer' is not as un-English as he thought, with an Old English, 'leger' giving us 'lair'. The only different is the Dutch prefix, 'be-' meaning 'around', though it is also seen in Old English-derived words like 'besiege', and 'beset'.

755: manikin and mannequin Jan 1, 2017

Mannequins resemble people for art and fashion-related purposes, so it would make sense that English adopted this word from the language of France, a place known well for those two things. The word, however, is originally Dutch from, 'manekijn' which means, 'little man', with the spelling only changed to fit French orthography. English did also gain another word, 'manikin' (or sometimes 'mannikin') directly from Dutch, but with the spelling altered to fit English orthography. Not only does this other spelling denote the models, but also physically small people, especially men.

754: utopia Dec 31, 2016

This year, 2016, marked the 500th anniversary of the Sir Thomas More book, Utopia, originally published in Latin. This book was the first time word had been used, invented from the Greek 'ou' and 'topos' meaning, 'no place'. The word 'dystopia' was created a few centuries later from back formation, meaning, 'bad place'. Before this 'bad place' there had been a 'good place', nearly identical in form to 'utopia', making the title of this book a pun as well.
May 2017 for you not be utopia, and leave 'ou topos' for dystopias.

753: Performance-verbs Dec 30, 2016

There are lots of different types of verbs, and while kindergarten teachers do lot lie when saying, 'a verb is an action-word' they rarely explain the different types of actions. A performance-verb, for example, is one type that conveys the performed speech-act, or in other words, it explains what the action is as the action happens. 'Invite', 'congratulate', and 'forbid' are all performance-verbs, as should someone say, 'I invite you over' that sentence would itself be an invitation, while another sentence like, 'I will be a better person' does not make the speaker a better person.

I thank you (performance-verb) for reading and hope you keep this in mind while you write your new year's resolutions.

752: Circumfix Dec 29, 2016

On this blog, you'll have seen a fair amount about affixes, especially Latinate prefixation. One affix, among the prefixes, suffixes, and infixes, that is often less fixated upon by English-speakers is the circumfix. Other languages, especially Austronesian languages like Malay see a lot of these forms in which both a prefix and a suffix are added at the same time as a single unit. There are some disagreements on what would qualify, but the best and perhaps only examples in English is the 'en- -en' or 'em- -en' circumfix, in such words as 'embolden'. These have grown fairly unpopular and are starting to phase out of use. 

751: Turkey and turkey Dec 28, 2016

Are you feeling Hungary for some Turkey? Either way, while the former country has nothing to do with hunger, and is in its own language instead called, Magyar, Turkey the country and turkey the fowl are not so different. The word 'turkey', before the arrival of Europeans in North America, applied to a different bird: guinea fowl, so nicknamed because they were imported to Europe through Turkey. When the Europeans did come to North America and see the turkey (Melleagris gallopavo) as we know today, they mistakenly associated them with guinea fowl and the term stuck.

750: austria, the orient, and easter Dec 27, 2016

What do 'Austria', 'The Orient', and 'Easter' have in common? Well despite the fact that on the surface the meanings do not relate, and that the words do not sound terribly similar, they all descend etymologically from words meaning, 'East'. The Orient should not have a surprising etymology then, so long as you think of Asia as east of Europe, but 'orientation' comes from the same Latin root with 'oriri' meaning, 'to rise', and because of the semantic relation to the Sun, it eventually lead to words meaning, 'east'. 'Austria', itself may sound like the root for 'Australia' and other words meaning, 'south' (read more here) but there is no connection. 'Austria' is a Latinization of what is now, 'Österreich' or then, 'Ostarrîchi' which meant, 'eastern realm' as it is (somewhat) east of Germany. Finally, 'Easter' comes from an Old English word, 'ēastre' and according to St. Bede, is the name of a goddess associated with spring.

749: richard, hick, and dick Dec 26, 2016

The name 'Richard' might make you think of the many European royal or noble men, which is partly from it being a traditional name, but also it is believed that a predecessor of the name, perhaps 'Richardu' in Proto-Germanic meant, 'hard ruler'. There were many nicknames that came up later on, including 'Rich', 'Rick', and then, 'Dick' and 'Hick', the latter being currently unpopular. 'Dick' to mean 'vexing person' came around only in the 16th century, and then as 'penis' in the 18th or 19th, with the first recorded use found in the 1890's from an English solider. 'Hick' as well took on negative connotations from its and 'dick's' shared sense as 'man'. 'Dick,' and 'Hick' became nicknames for 'Richard' at a time when it was fairly common to have rhyme-based nicknames, in this case of 'Rick', much like with 'Rob' and 'Bob', 'Molly' and 'Polly', and 'Will' and 'Bill'.

748: baader-meinhof phenomenon Dec 25, 2016

Have you ever found that when something will seem to pop-up, occur, or otherwise make itself known frequently once it's been pointed out that you didn't notice at all before? There is a term for this in psychology called, the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, named after the former left-wing West German terrorist group. A researcher in the '80's noticed the name of the terrorist group in a newspaper, and then found that he kept seeing it after that, even though the presence of the word as used around him had not changed really. No one is quite sure why this happens, but it is not strange to all of a sudden notice something constantly that otherwise would slip you by unawares.

747: gay Dec 24, 2016

From a few decades old music to books and anything else from the past, it isn't too uncommon to find 'gay' as an adjective meaning, 'joyful', 'showy' or 'mirthful', as it did since the 12th century. In the 17th century, the word took on a second meaning of, 'drawn to pleasures' and sometimes, 'of loose or immoral lifestyle', but existed alongside the earlier sense. In the 19th century, 'gay' took on the meaning of 'prostitute' and a 'gay man' was one who slept with many prostitutes, giving rise to the phrase, 'gay it' to mean 'have sex'. Only in the 1920's or '30's did the word refer to what we think of today, and later on in the mid-50's gay men themselves felt that 'homosexual' was too clinical and cemented the definition which having so many senses up until then was sort of vague, so people stopped using 'gay' so mean 'jolly'. 'Gaiety' seems to have been unaffected and kept its original sense, however. See also "in the closet". 

746: hokey pokey and hocus pocus Dec 23, 2016

There are some disagreements about the true origins of this, so take the following not so much as a word-fact but as a word-theory.

The phrases 'hocus-pocus' and 'hokey-pokey' which are often associated with witchcraft and silliness respectively are believed to originate, not from, but because of the Catholic Church. Most evidence shows that the jingle, Hokey Pokey, originated in Scotland from the Puritans who would mock the Catholics preaching in ecclesiastical Latin. More specifically the Puritans would poke fun at the Latin in, in this case, the chant used during The Eucharist. In England and Canada the song is called the Hokey Cokey, differing because at the time when the lyrics were being copyrighted, the lyricist opted for an existing Canadian slang word, 'cokey' that meant 'crazy' as a replacement for the original one. 

745: Litterbug Dec 22, 2016

People litter, certainly, and cats have litters (of kittens), but bugs don't really have any relation; even a now-archaic form of the word meant to make a bed of litter for usually a horse, so why do people say, 'litterbug', in a teasing or pejorative manner? While both of the tmeses, or the individual elements of a compound, are quite old 'litterbug' has only been around for a few decades. Much like the term, 'jaywalking' (see here), 'litterbug' was a word coined by corporations trying to put the blame on the public for problems that were not really the fault (entirely) of the people and avoid responsibility for, in this case, pollution.

744: ballerina Dec 21, 2016

To ask what the male counterpart for a ballerina would be goes further than simply the masculine an feminine forms for a single word. Colloquially, 'ballerina' is simply a female ballet-dancer, but more technically, she is the head- female dancer. As such, there isn't as much need to make a distinction based on gender; there is the ballerina and then everyone else would simply be termed a 'dancer'. Interestingly, however, the word, 'ballerina' is the feminine form of the Italian, 'ballerino', but since ballet uses French terminology, this word is not a title for any male dancer.

743: 2nd Person Pronouns Dec 20, 2016

Two of the most commonly used words in English are 'I' and 'you'. Despite their commonality and seemingly fundamental necessity, while, 'I' is more or less universal, 'you' is incredibly difficult to translate. In languages unlike Standard American English, there will be different forms for the singular and the plural, and in some cases there is a separate word for specifically 2 addressees. English used to make the distinction between the informal, 'thou' formal, 'you' and plural, 'ye' but this was eventually largely dropped. Other languages also have different forms for levels of familiarity and necessary respect, sometimes just with informal and formal terms, but there could be many more. In fact, in the 18th century, a Chinese emperor had a scholar, and his entire family, executed for using a pronoun that was too familiar. The final distinguishing factor that many languages make is gender, but often there is also a lot of combining of the previously mentioned 3, as in Spanish plural, masculine or feminine, formal or informal pronouns. Some languages like Portuguese omit this pronoun as it is unnecessary from conjugation, but other ones like Japanese or Korean will omit them with absolutely no context and force the listener to guess.

742: fracture, fraction, and fractal Dec 19, 2016

hat does fracking have to do with fractals?––Generally very little in terms of their mechanics, but as you may now be guessing, they are etymologically related. 'Frack' is just an abbreviation started in the 1950's of 'fracture', but in addition to 'fractal', 'fraction is related. All of these words come from the Latin participle of 'frangere' which means, 'to break', 'fractura', but while 'frack' took the meaning of breaking into pieces, the two aforesaid mathematical terms use a meaning closer to reduction.

741: World Englishes Dec 18, 2016

There is an area of linguistic study that has only existed fairly recently and only with a few other languages, including Arabic, Spanish, and French: World Englishes. Most languages are spoken only relatively few people in one region, but English is spoken all over the world by as many as 1 in 7 to 1 in 4 people, depending on how one measures levels of fluency. If enough people speak a language over a large enough area, there will be regional dialects no matter what, but now English is also influenced by other languages native to different places, accents, culture, and varying education. English is increasingly global also as the internet gives people access to everyone else online, and so it accounts for between 65%-80% of the content on the web. As more individuals speak this language, more dialects and variations emerge. 

740: animus Dec 17, 2016

As time goes on, words gain new meanings and these are often reinforced with derivatives, as it is more difficult conceptually to have a word with two potentially contrasting meanings than it would be to use two separately pronounced ones. It is not uncommon for this reason to have a single outlying derivative distinct from the general thematic connotation that the rest, as well as the original word, have. Every now and then, conflicting ideologies will effect a word's derivatives to fall into one of usually two groups. 'Animosity', 'animus' and in certain contexts, 'animalistic' and 'animality' all tend towards the connotation of hatred, or a lack of restraint. On the other hand, 'animism', 'animate', and 'anima' all relate more to the original sense of the word: a soul. All of these words come from the same Latin one, and ultimately from an Indo European root meaning, 'to breathe' but depend fundamentally on the way that people perceive them.

739: That Dec 16, 2016

It would certainly be insulting to refer to someone as 'it' instead of 'he', 'she' or some other preferred pronoun, so it should then seem strange that, 'that' is often used instead of 'who' when referring to a person, introducing a subordinate clause, e.g. "She's a woman that loves to read". That is also used for inanimate objects, and necessary when referencing the subject of the clause. There is more information on the difference between 'that' and 'which' here. This confusion has existed since the 11th century, and would no longer be due to applying 'that' as it would have been used for inanimate objects: this is a manner of speech with history.

738: Fillip Dec 15, 2016

The onset 'fli' has in many words like 'flick' is used imitatively to demonstrate rapid motion (see more  here). This is believed by psycho-linguists to be quick release of the speaker's curled tongue. The word 'fillip' is yet another example of this, first having the meaning of flicking one's finger, but it soon took on the meaning of acting as a stimulus or giving something energy, and moved slightly away from the theme of the other words that follow this same pattern.