1744: 'Blitzkrieg' wasn't used by the Germans Sep 23, 2019

There are lots of new German words that entered English, like 'wanderlust', 'zeitgeist' or 'blitzkrieg', sort of. 'Blitzkrieg' (lightning warfare) comes from the German language, but the word was not used by German military, and it was only used in German propaganda after the Western Allies started using the term. Perhaps the most important reason why this is come down to the fact that it isn't military doctrine, because it is not precise, and many historians today debate whether it should be applied at all. Also, the term that was used as a sort of catchall for a rapid combined arms doctrine was 'Bewegungskrieg', meaning 'mobile warfare'.

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1743: Europa and Frangistan Sep 22, 2019

Most major world languages, as well as those which did not have contact with Europe until fairly recently have a word for 'Europe' derive the name from 'Europa'. Even in Chinese 'Ōuzhōu' (歐洲/欧洲) comes from an abbreviation of 'Ōuluóbā', the L and the B coming from the R and the P respectively. One exception came from Turkic languages that used to have a name along the lines of 'Frangistan', still occasionally in use informally today, meaning 'land of the Franks' particularly after the crusades. Indeed, in Hindi the word for Europeans is 'Firang' of the same root.

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1742: Franks and frankincense Sep 21, 2019

'Frank' has meant many things over the years, from 'honest and direct' today to 'free' in the past relating to the political stature of the historical Franks. However, it is also present, from the same etymology, in 'frankincense': a plant from Somalia. 'Frankincense' is mentioned a fair amount in the Bible. This is because 'frank' also meant 'high-quality; superior' in the past, again relating to the Franks. Literally the name would just mean 'high-quality incense' therefore. In the Bible, the name is לבונה (levona/lebonah), from a root meaning 'white'.

1741: Nahuatl in Tagalog Sep 20, 2019

Tagalog has a lot of loanwords, discussed yesterday; around 49% of their vocabulary is of non-native origins. Some sources seem obvious, like Spanish (13%) and American English (7%) as they were recently colonial powers for The Philippines, as well as Chinese (7%) as there has long been a Chinese presence in the islands. However, Nahuatl, spoken by the Aztecs makes up a larger 10% of the lexical makeup of modern Tagalog. This may seem surprising, especially considering that they are the total length of the Pacific Ocean apart, but this happened two ways. First, Aztecs were brought over from New Spain before Mexican independence, but also some words were pick up by Spaniards themselves. In any other Asian or Pacific language, even one Indigenous American word can be rare that it has led aided research about trans-Pacific migration patterns.

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1740: Bad Loan Words Sep 19, 2019

Just because something is a loan word doesn't mean that it will mean the same thing in both languages. This happens in many languages, but take for the example 'delikado' in Tagalog meaning dangerous compared to the original Spanish 'delicado' (delicate) or 'tsika' (gossip) from 'chica' (girl). There are lots of examples of this possibly because Spanish is so different linguistically from Tagalog, and that there was always a majority indigenous population during the colonial period.

1739: pawling: not pauling Sep 18, 2019

Although the United States is pretty young compared to some countries, there are examples of how place names change seemingly randomly. The 'Bronx' is one, but also the lesser-known Pawling, also in New York, was originally written 'Pauling', named for Catherine Pauling, whose father owned the area. The name only changed due to a misprint from U to a W, but since then the name stuck.

1738: liaison and ligation Sep 17, 2019

'Liaison' was originally a cooking term, as discussed yesterday, but there is more than one way how that word changed. 'Ligation' is a doublet of 'liaison', meaning that they both came from the same word but diverged phonetically over time. I this case, 'ligate' came directly from Latin for 'to tie' (ligare), whereas 'liaison' evolved within French first. Many words in medicine, in this case specifically surgery come directly from Latin, and, more importantly, have not existed as long, such that they are more similar to the original.

1737: liaison Sep 16, 2019

A liaison now means a close meeting of two people, sometimes secretly, but it was originally a cooking term. Still today it can be used to refer to a binding or thickening agent in cooking or baking, often based on eggs, but over time the idea of bringing two ingredients together started to refer more often to people, as is the case today.

As it happens, in linguistics the term refers to when a normally 'silent' letter, such as in French, is pronounced when the following word begins in a vowel, such as the S in 'mes amis' (my friends).

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1736: crikey Sep 16, 2019

The Victorians came up with lots of euphemisms for religiously inspired cursing. Some lasted, but like 'Crikey', now often associated with Australia, many were just exported. 'Crikey' was derived in mid-19th century off of the word 'Christ'. The term has since moved away from its religious connotations—perhaps the sign of a successful euphemism—and while it is used in many English-speaking regions, it also shows how slang can so easily change.

Watch more in our video here.

1735: White, Black, and Red Russia Sep 14, 2019

While Belarus means, and is often referred to simply as 'White Russia', the 'white' may not have anything to do with that color. There was also a Black Ruthenia and Red Ruthenia also referred to as a 'Rus', now the former is mostly in western Belarus and the latter was mostly in western Ukraine. A leading theory suggests that this system had been used in Western Europe, apparently inherited by the Mongols who used it just to denote direction. Though the colored Rus regions were not used in Russia, since 'Black Russia' was also linked geographically to the pagan Balts, the term 'White Russia gained additional Christian connotations in Western Europe. By the time of the country's independence, the color in the name distinguished them from the Soviets. One way or another, through hundreds of years, the color in the name stuck.

For commentary on the photos cut from the recent videos, click here.

1734: uranus and urinate Sep 13, 2019

There's a joke that the planet 'Uranus' sounds like 'your anus', but that's not so far off. Although the etymology is disputed, the most probable source comes from the enlarged form of *ṷorsó- from the Greek for 'to urinate'. It's related through the Proto-Indo-European root to the Sanskrit várṣati 'to rain' and from there the connection to clouds, and the god thereof, might make more sense. Indeed, the name 'Uranus' (or 'Ouranos') might be better translated as 'rainmaker', historo-etymologically speaking, than just the god of the sky.

For more on Uranus, see the 7-part series on naming the cosmos.

1733: essen (City) Sep 12, 2019

The city of Essen, Germany is sometimes thought to be from the infinitive / participle German 'essen' ('eating'), but this is mistaken. The oldest-known name of the city is 'Astnide', but obviously this is very different. The name was, among the many stages of change, once called 'Esnede', which should give some idea how that could become what it is now. This is still somewhat theoretical, but this would make the name of the city having come from an old word for 'ash tree', which in modern German is now 'Esche'.

The newest video's topic relates to this in some ways. Watch the teaser below, or you can watch the whole video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA7mMfX3Bh0&t=7s

1732: firth and fjord Sep 11, 2019

The landscape of Great Britain is not so similar to the far more rugged Scandinavian coast, which is why when describing long narrow inlets between cliffs, the usual word is the Norwegian 'fjord', even for places in, even for in the Americas. Nonetheless, English already had a word for that, sort of: 'firth'. Such as in the 'Strait of Firth' or the 'Solway Firth', there are physical features in Britain with this name. As it happens, this word too ultimately comes from Old Norse, same as 'fjord', but it entered Middle English through Scotts, which should not be so surprising considering that these firths are mostly in the North of England or in Scotland. 
Watch the most recent video here: https://youtu.be/kA7mMfX3Bh0

1731: C vs. K (& Q vs. G) Sep 10, 2019

In very old Latin writings, C, K, and Q were all used to represent the sounds /k/ and /g/, those two not yet distinguished in writing. This is mostly the same as in English now, and similarly certain variants were prefered in certain contexts, such as Q before a rounded vowel (hence Qu-). C eventually replaced K in most words, one exception being 'Kalend' (calend), and G was invented off of C—that's why they look so similar—and in places where the Latin alphabet was adopted, like Roman England or places where the Romance languages are spoken today. Elsewhere, like in Germanic areas or Eastern Europe, this was not so, and they kept K. This was influenced also by runic letters, but only so far.

For more on English spelling, watch the newest video here, or for the history of letters, click here.

1730: Sounds Change in English: Lancaster

The name of 'Lancaster' in England now might sound a bit abstract: not so in Chaucer's time. As late as the writing as Chaucer, the city would have been called 'Loncastel' or even 'Longcastel', such as in Chaucer's "Deeth of Blauche the Dutchess". It is called 'Loncastre' in the Doomsday Book, and while the latter element means 'fort; castle', the former is not 'long', but 'Lune', denoting the local river. Moreover, it shows that the '-st-' of 'castle' was pronounced once as the spelling indicated. To see more about why English spelling no longer reflects pronunciation, and to hear more from Chaucer, watch the new video: https://youtu.be/kA7mMfX3Bh0

1729: Esperanto in Brand Names Sep 8, 2019

Esperanto was originally meant to be a language for business and politics. This never manifested itself, but there are a few times brands have given a sort of wink to the language. The formerly Swiss, presently American watch company Movado (always in motion) takes approximately half of its watches' names from Esperanto, including Belamodo (beautiful fashion), Fiero ("pride"), and Verto ("head top"). Other brands have done this as well on a smaller scale, though usually only as a nod to the original goal, with no real success.

Make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel for the video out tomorrow: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNofHfYEoM2l7fu2340gsDQ

1728: The Most Widely-Spoken Unofficial Language Sep 7, 2019

Javanese is the most widely spoken language that is not an official language. With around 100 million speakers—roughly 42% of Indonesia's population—this language could have been a suitable choice for Indonesia's national language, or even just one of them, but since the only official language for whole country is Bahasa Indonesia (there are certainly regionally official languages), it can be argued that Javanese is the most widely spoken language not official recognized by any country. The reason for this was to avoid favoritization of one language over the rest; since around 700 languages are spoken in the immense nation, Bahasa Indonesia was in some respects fabricated in order to be more nationalistic.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNofHfYEoM2l7fu2340gsDQ

1727: Captain, or Post-Captain Cook? Sep 6, 2019

Some have said that Captain James Cook was not a captain, pointing to the fact that he was a lieutenant, a commander, and post-captain. Those other facts are true, technically, but it shows a misunderstanding of what a post-captain is. First, there is no longer a position called 'post-captain', which nowadays is just called 'commander' or usually 'captain' depending upon the ship. Even so, and more importantly, at the time, a post-captain was an officer promoted from commander to captain, and moreover one who had seniority and whose name was publicly 'posted'. It also it signified that he commanded a rated ship, i.e. having three or more masts. The descriptor 'post-captain' has never been a title though, so even for the time he was addressed as 'Capt. Cook'. That is to say, in short, that Capt. Cook was not only a captain, but also of the the highest rank one could be.

1726: same and zusammen Sep 5, 2019

German is famous for compounding things together, but its word for 'together', itself a compound, is formed of elements that can no longer be parsed. The German 'zusammen' (together) comes from 'zu-' (to) and 'sammen' (together), and like English with '-gether' coming from 'gather', the parts can no longer be separated. 'Sammen' is still part of many other compounds though, like 'sammlung' (collection; exhibition) or 'sammeln' (to collect). This is related to the English word 'same', and formerly 'sammen' (together) in Middle English, as well as many other words across Indo-European languages, including 'homos'—like 'homo-'—in Greek.

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1725: balm, embalm, and balsamic Sep 4, 2019

We probably don't think of ritual embalming when we think of lip balm, but looking at those two words together might make you think twice. The words are clearly related, but it is 'embalming' meaning 'preparing a corpse for burial' which is the divergent one. 'Balm' and 'embalm', and for that matter 'balsam' and 'balsamic' all used to mean simply 'something, usually an ointment to give a pleasing odor'; 'balm' is also just a variant of an earlier 'balsm'. However, nowadays, both 'balm' and 'embalm' have moved away from the connotation to scent and towards skin preservation, which granted was what balsamic ointments generally were for anyway, but the meaning stayed more or less in 'balsam' and 'balsamic'.

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