1543: tantalize Mar 5, 2019

Even though it was never part of the culture of the English, there are a number of words which come from Greek mythology which have entered the English language. This is true of words like 'narcissism' and 'clue', but also 'tantalize'. Unlike the other words with the '-alize' suffix, such as 'nationalize', 'tantalize' is not completely connected to that ending. Instead, the word comes from 'Tantalus', who was cursed to be in a pool of water with fruit over his head that he could not consume.
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

1542: Naming a Big Region for a Small One: africa and asia Mar 4, 2019

While in most cases, it is easier to have a general umbrella term for a collection of related topics, but sometimes this happens the other way around. Like in the case of the use of 'Holland', which can refer to the netherlands but is actually only a region of it, both 'Africa', and 'Asia' come from words that initially only described small regions. In the case of Asia, it is thought that the name comes from a Greek word relating to sunrise, and hence the East. However, this was only in relation to Anatolia, which coincidentally today is sometimes called Asia Minor. In the case of Africa, the origin is more disputed, but no matter what, the namesake was only a province in the Roman Empire around modern-day Tunisia.
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts to get even more content.

1541: Language and Diversity Mar 3, 2019

Some of the countries with the least racial or cultural diversity have the most ethnic diversity, depending upon how one chooses to look at it. In terms of languages, Pew Research released a figure of the most diverse countries based upon combinations of ethnicity and languages, and the some of the most diverse countries, without a dominant languages or single set of cultural values were found in Africa, like Chad, Nigeria, Togo and the DRC, but also Papua New Guinea and other places with high concentrations of linguistic diversity instead of a mostly dominant language. Argentina and Rwanda (because of the genocide) were some of the least diverse. Ultimately, identity, and group identity, hinges on lots of factors, but no doubt language is a big one.
Support Word Facts on Patreon.com/wordfacts

1540: hazard Mar 2, 2019

Gambling is certainly risky business, and while this isn’t reflected in the word ‘gambling’ itself—which is thought to come from ‘game’—the word ‘hazad’ does hint at this. Ultimately, the English word ‘hazard’ comes from the Persian ‘zār’ meaning ‘dice’. However, the reason why the English word is so different looking today, is that, like many words that are derived from this region, it travel via Arabic in the form of ‘az-zahr’, and then Spanish in the period of Moorish rule, next to Old French in the time that the Normans controlled English. 
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

1539: disaster Mar 1, 2019

Whether or not you believe in astrology, it is probably safe to say that earlier civilizations put more stock into it than people do today. Taking the example of ‘disaster’ for instance, the word came to English in the 16th century from ‘disastro’, literally meaning ‘bad star’. 
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

1538: lemur Feb 28, 2019

European colonial powers at the time encountered many unique places, peoples, and animals, all of which needed a name. Some of these animals bore native names, others were named from relation to other things, but others were names more descriptively. With the lemur for instance, found only in Madagascar, the name comes from the Latin 'lemures' meaning ‘spirits of the dead’, due to the association made with its apparently specter-like facial features.
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts for even more content.

1537: Sandwiches Feb 27, 2019

There are lots of different names for sandwiches, including in the United States 'hoagies', 'submarines', 'po'boys', 'heros' and 'grinders'. All of those have distinct origins, relating to shape, ingredients, and in more than one case, pejoratives for Italians. In the United Kingdom however, it is generally more common to nickname something by abbreviation, which shows itself to be true here with 'butty' (from 'buttered sandwich) and 'sarnie'. In the latter case, there is noticeably the insertion of [r], however, this probably—at least at first—had less to do with the pronunciation, and just represented a lengthened vowel, as is often the case in non-rhotic dialects, such as British English.

Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

1536: Peking and Beijing Feb 26, 2019

For various reasons throughout history many cities and even countries change their names. Sometimes this is for colonial reasons, as was the case recently with the switch from 'Swaziland' to 'Eswatini' or 'Rhodesia' to 'Zimbabwe', and at other times it is just to reflect demographics or other things like with 'Burma' to 'Myanmar', which wanted to reflect that not all of its citizens were ethnically Burmese. However, when people started calling 'Peking' 'Beijing', this was not for some colonial issue, but just that both were attempts to transliterate the name of the Chinese capital. The only curious part is that many Chinese officials are upset when English speakers say 'Peking', but when Germans, French, or the Spanish say 'Peking' or 'Pekín, or 'Pékin' respectively, this doesn't seem to be an issue.
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

1535: pamphlet Feb 25, 2019

While it is today associated with short, often news-related literature, the word 'pamphlet' actually comes from a familiar form of the name Pamphilet. This comes from the Latin poem 'Pamphilus, seu de Amore' (Pamphilus, or of Love), which doesn't have anything itself to do with pamphlets, but the poem was circulated widely and wasn't very long, so in essence connoted the same things how it is today.
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts.

1534: Biblical Languages Feb 24, 2019

The Christian Bible was written in 3 different languages, and each shows a different history of the people within it. The first 5 books were in Hebrew originally, and then later as the prophetic writings were often in Aramaic. Later on, the New Testament was written in Koine Greek, but while none of these were completely separate, such as marginal notes and other commentaries of the first 5 books being written in Aramaic. This is relevant to keep in mind when reading translations, but it also helps to explain, for instance, why later languages often have so much influence from Aramaic, as this was still actively used by some groups until the ninth century, and many words were extracted from the religious texts after then.

For more on this, watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTKKSf35LSE&t=32s

1533: earth-apple and chamomile Feb 23, 2019

As has been covered a few times here before, 'apple' has given its name to many different varieties of fruits and vegetables in many different languages around the world, from 'apelsin' meaning 'orange' in Swedish literally translating to 'china-apple', as well as both 'pomme de terre' in French and תפוח אדמה in Hebrew translating literally as 'apple of the earth' but meaning 'potato'. However, this is also true historically of things that don't even have the same shape or size of an apple at all. The word 'chamomile' comes to English via French and Latin from the Greek 'khamaimēlon' (χαμαίμηλον) which also means ‘earth-apple’. In this case however, it is not from a visual resemblance, but because the flowers apparently spelt like apple. For more about the difficultly in describing smells, watch this video: https://youtu.be/3zz9Hf2KUbg

1532: Singular and Plural Agreement for Collective Nouns Feb 22, 2019

In American English, collective nouns (i.e. nouns that refer to groups of things like 'family' or 'committee') are almost always treated as a singular, but this is not always the case in British English. In British English, collective nouns do usually have singular agreement (e.g. 'family is' not 'family are') but this is only when the group is being referred to as a whole. At other times, if one wanted to emphasize the individual parts of said group, one using British English conventions would opt for plural agreement, such as 'the family is convening' but perhaps 'the family are quarreling'.
Support Word Facts on Patreon.com/wordfacts

1531: y'all, yous, and yinz Feb 21, 2019

Even in the few forms of a second-person plural English pronoun, such as 'y'all', 'yous' and 'yinz', they pretty much all originate from combinations. While there are dozens of varieties of English, the main two sort of standard models are the Standard American and Standard British styles; neither of these have a distinction between the singular and plural forms for the second person pronoun but the other pronouns worked their ways out of this same word. 'Y'all' is just the elision of 'you all', and 'yous' comes from the '-s' form for general pluralization. 'Yinz' comes from 'you -uns'. which is shortened form of 'you ones'; originating in Ireland, it follows the same pattern as 'youngin', but gained greater popularity in Appalachia and the Midwest in the 19th century.

1530: pica Feb 20, 2019

Following yesterday's post about the unit of 'pica', it should be noted that this is a term used in printing, but also medicine, in which it denotes a tendency to eat non-food items. While it may be considered a serious term insofar as it is jargon for two professions, both of these terms originate from a Latin word for 'magpie'. The reason why this would have the meaning it does in medicine is fairly easy to understand, but in printing this makes less sense at first. However, it is believed that it comes from the appearance of piebald (a word that also comes from 'magpie') appearance of a printed page, compared to hand-written and illustrated ones.
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

1529: Why 12-Point Font Feb 19, 2019

On many word processors, the default font-size is 12 points, nowadays, for whatever the font. This number may seem random, but—within the imperial system—it makes a lot of sense. Using standard measurements, a point is one-twelfth of a pica, which is just about one-sixth of an inch. Traditionally, all fonts would need to be measured not only to fit the page, but also measured against each other, so these numbers were important and 12 became standard. With digital printing however, many fonts will be larger or smaller than stated, no longer actually using points as a form of standard measurement.
More on fonts here.
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

1528: -ing in English Names Feb 18, 2019

While the suffix '-ing' meaning 'small' noly appears at the end of a few words like 'duckling', 'gosling', or 'fledgling', it used to be quite a bit more popular, and it shows today. Many British surnames also come from this root, but this can be harder to discern, because another Old English word meaning 'people of' now resembles this today, such as in the city of Reading, England.

Support Word facts on patreon.com/wordfacts for even more.

1527: 'Arab World' Feb 17, 2019

Since discussions in the domain of geopolitics often relate to huge amounts of land and millions of people, a lot of generalizations need to be made. For instance, when people speak of the 'Arab world', this usually relates to parts of North Africa and West Asia that have predominantly Arab-speaking populations. However, this then includes many millions of speakers of language like Berber or Kurdish that don't resemble Arabic at all.

Support Word Facts on Patreon.com/wordfacts and get even more.

1526: City of Lights Feb 16, 2019

Paris might have been the first city to light up a street with gas lamps, but the nickname 'City of Light(s)' is much older. In popular use, the phrase 'City of Light' or 'La Ville–Lumière' comes from Paris' status as a place of education during the Enlightenment Era. However, this nickname has been around for much longer and across languages. During Islam's Golden Age, Baghdad—once the world's premier center of learning—was called the city of light.

Support Word Facts and access more content at patreon.com/wordfacts

1525: Conservative use of English in Pakistan Feb 15, 2019

The widespread use of English, especially in legislative purposes, is due in large part to colonialism, though there are some major exceptions such as in the EU. In all overseas territories, there will be a collection of words and phrases that are completely different to that of the home-country, but also some that are conserved. In Pakistan for instance, where English is an official language but also very widespread and prized among average citizens, there is a noticeable influence from the native Urdu, but also plenty of words and phrases conserved from older forms of English like 'into' to mean 'multiplied by' such as in "3 into 3 is 9", or '(in) tension' to refer to nervousness. Overall, this happens in every form of English around the world.

For more on how languages evolve watch more here

And support Word Facts on Patreon.com/wordfacts

1524: Sprachbund Feb 14, 2019

It was discussed in the post from yesterday how languages on the west coast of North America are extraordinarily diverse, but just because the languages do not have one clear linguistic ancestor does not mean that they have no relation whatsoever. No matter what, languages in proximity to one another will share some similarities, even if it is just in some vocabulary or basic sound-structures but not enough to warrant the title 'language family'. These are sometimes called a 'Sprachbund' or 'linguistic area', and they help to explain what could be misleading similarities.

See more about that here: https://youtu.be/oqmZCCXL_Hg

Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Find yesterday's post here.