1843: secular Jan 1, 2020
The word 'secular' has been around for a long time, but has only been antonymous with 'religious' since the Enlightenment. Before this, it meant 'of generations' and related to the passage of time in a fairly areligious sense. Even after the shift in meaning however, it is often difficult to transfer this term to other, non-western cultures, because many other religions do not hold the natural and supernatural world as dichotomous. This has led to Japan being legislatively both a secular and Shintoist nation.
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1842: Redundancy of כ/ך in Hebrew Dec 31, 2019
Along with the actually redundant letters, Hebrew has a few—like in English—which become redundant in certain contexts. For instance, כ, which also appears as ך at the ends of word can be just a plain [k]. However, it appears a [x]—like the Scottish 'loch'—after any vowel. In this way, the sound is not entirely redundant, but there are two other letters that represent those sounds respectively and exclusively, namely ק and ח. This is not unlike the situation with C, which could be replaced by either S or K in most situations, but also can be affected, sort of, morphologically, such as 'fanatiC' to 'fanatiCism'.
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1841: Emphatic צ in Ancient Hebrew Dec 30, 2019
As with ט and ת, there are some ways that Hebrew writing has become somewhat obsolete. In another case, though less extreme, the letter צ (pronounced 'ts', like the German 'z') used to be emphatic, such that it was aspirated differently (obstructed) before certain other sounds (more details here), such that it would be pronounced like an S, sort of, namely [s^ʕ]. However, there are already two letters that represent [s] without such obstruance, that is, ס and ש. Unlike with ט and ת for [t] however, this differentiation still exists, just without any pharyngealization (think: vocal fry) found in ancient Hebrew. More on the transformation of Hebrew letters tomorrow.
1840: Emphatic ט in Ancient Hebrew Dec 29, 2019
Hebrew orthography has 3 letters that represent silence, sort of, as well as two ways to represent [t], and two ways to represent [s]. However, this was not always so redundant. Of the two ways to represent the sound [t] in Modern Hebrew ט and ת, both have changed over time, but ט has changed more minimally. This letter used to be emphatic, meaning the air was immediately blocked after making the sound. This feature was lost to time however, due to influences from Indo-European languages, just like with Maltese. More on this tomorrow
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1839: Ròu in Chinese Culture Dec 28, 2019
In English, the existence of 'pork' reveals a bit about history and culture, and in its own way the same is true for the Chinese 肉 (ròu) meaning 'meat' or 'flesh'. In China, the most popular meat, by far, is pork, so much so that it is generally taken that when not specified 肉 simply means 'pork'. Other elements are necessary to express other words 牛肉 (niú ròu) is 'beef' and 桃肉 (Táo ròu) is something like 'peach pulp'.
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1838: rule of thumb (myths) Dec 27, 2019
There is a myth that the phrase "rule of thumb" originates from a law concerning the width of stick one could beat his wife with. However, there is no evidence for any such law existing, and indeed, the first connection to a court—via unsubstantiated personal comments from a judge—follows the first recorded use of the phrase as we still use it today by about a century. In that quote, it is also contrasted with "square and rule", which is definitely just a term relating to precise measurements.
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1837: 'Rough' in the Military Dec 26, 2019
The military has given English—just as in many other languages—a lot of terminology, but also a lot of colloquialisms. Both 'rough-and-tumble' and 'rough-and-ready' are originally from the military, though it may be more fair to say that the latter was a general term for a style of free-fighting. Read more about 'rough' here.
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1836: History of "Answer Me, Oh My Love" Dec 25, 2019
One of Nat King Cole’s most famous songs “Answer Me, Oh My Love”, was originally a German one, “Mütterlein”; still, this may not be the most significant way it changed. When the song was written again in English in 1953, it was called “Answer Me, Lord Above”. Originally aired in the UK—not covered by Nat King Cole until the next year—the song was banned from the BBC for containing lyrics considered too religious. You can still hear some traces of the religious language in Cole’s 1954 cover. See the example below.
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Frankie Laine:
“Answer me, Lord above:
Just what sin have I been guilty of?
Tell me how I came to lose my love.
Please answer me, oh, Lord.”
Nat King Cole:
“Answer me, oh my love:
Just what sin have I been guilty of?
Tell me how I came to lose my love.
Please answer me, sweetheart.”
1835: rough, rugged, and ragged Dec 24, 2019
Most people would probably want to see a man look rugged as opposed to ragged, or otherwise rough, but almost indubitably those terms are all related somewhere down the line. Although these words, and others, including just 'rug' and 'rag' meaning 'unkempt' in some sense or another all have old Germanic roots, and cognates in languages like Norwegian and Scotts, they have also changed a great deal over time; they relate to one's character, visage, and even decor (rug originally meant anything woolen and shaggy) but none have totally strayed from the root.
If there's another term that could belong here, write it in a comment. You can also support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts
1834: sheriff, shire, and sharif Dec 23, 2019
There is a myth among some that the word 'sheriff' either originates from or is somehow otherwise related to 'sharif', as in a Muslim ruler or magistrate. This is not true. Although the meanings are similar enough in some ways, especially including the Scottish use of the word as 'judge', it actually dates back to Old English. Indeed, the word 'scīrgerēfa' is also related to the modern 'shire', from the meaning of 'area of care, concern', and also 'reeve', as in a Medieval local official.
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1833: yenta Dec 22, 2019
Made famous by 'Fiddler on the Roof", there is some confusion about the meaning of 'Yente'. Some people think this is matchmaker—this was only her job in the story—but what simply started as a surname has indeed morphed into a word in English, in some communities, meaning 'gossip'. However, the name itself actually originated as a variant of 'Yentl' (יענטל) from Italian meaning literally 'gentile'. To be clear, this is not to say it meant 'non-Jew', but instead 'noble'.
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1832: alarm and alert Dec 21, 2019
If you’ve ever dreaded your morning alarm, you probably didn’t dread it as much as those who created the word incidentally. The word comes originally as an exclamation, initially from Italian ‘allarme’ and then eventually brought to English from “all’ arme” meaning “to arms” used in the military (and not “all arm!“ though that is not so different). It is not related to ‘alert', from “à l’erte” though the two are connected insofar as they are both compounds, this one meaning “to the watchtower”.
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1831: vaccine Dec 20, 2019
In some sense, the first vaccine invented was to treat smallpox, but it was not made with strains of 'smallpox' itself. When it was discovered that once someone contracted cowpox virus, he would be immune to smallpox. The word 'vaccine' still reflects that, coming from the Latin 'vacca' meaning 'cow', though of course this is now applied to a vaccine for any illness.
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1830: impeach Dec 19, 2019
The term 'impeachment' has come up a fair amount in the last few weeks. This will not clarify the process itself, but it's interesting nevertheless to look into where it came from. The word 'impeach' has a 'im-' prefix, which is just how the negating prefix 'in-' changes before a b/p/m, however there is no 'peachment' (though there is an unrelated 'peach' fruit). The reason for this is the same as for 'impede', becasue they come from the same root: the Latin 'ped' meaning 'foot', basically resulting in 'to stop', or more literally in the Latin 'impedīre', 'to ensnare' (think of bear-traps). An earlier, though false, etymology assumed the word to originate from 'impetere' (attack), and was actually a specific kind of Roman punishment of throwing someone in the water while in a sacl, but this is not the root.
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1829: persia Dec 18, 2019
The name 'Persia' was given by the Greeks, and later the Romans, based off of one region of Cyrus the Great's empire, because all of the people whom the Greeks initially engaged diplomatically were from the region of Pars. This would have been outdated though, even for them, since these people had taken over other kingdoms, and the Iranians then called the area Iranishar. Before this still, the Greeks used words which would have meant 'median', as a reference to its location between Europe and East Asia.
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1828: Countries Named for Smaller Regions Dec 17, 2019
Many places are named for a smaller region, often administrative region, such as 'Holland' for 'the Netherlands', or less officially the "Bonn–", "Weimar–", and contemporary "Berlin Republic" for 'Germany'. This tradition is cultural, but not completely uncommon across the world, but this tradition in Europe it is often attributed to the Romans, who named other places for the capital region, including the name of the Roman Empire itself, centered in Rome of course. Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts
1827: Pacific Ocean in German Dec 16, 2019
Although the Germans did eventually have Pacific colonies, because they arrived there so much later than the Spanish, they had several different names for the Pacific Ocean. The earliest name in the early 16th century was a calque of the Spanish "Mar Pacifico" resulting in "das friedliche Meer" (The Peaceful Sea). Later on, in the 19th century, the name was changed to "das Stilles Meer" based off the Latin "Mare Pacificum", again, a calque, but with the meaning of "Silent Sea" . Only later in the 19th century did the name even contain the word 'Ozean' (ocean), and later still the name "die Pazifischer Ozean" become adopted, based off of the English name. "Stiller Ozean" is also still sometimes used as well.
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1826: Confusing Cyrillic Cursive Dec 15, 2019
Cyrillic cursive, known in Russian as 'rukopísny shrift' (рукопи́сный шрифт) is simply the handwritten form of the Cyrillic alphabet, designed to make writing faster and more fluid, as with any handwritten writing system. However, a noted problem is that the letters и, л, м, ш, щ, ы can all be made entirely or partly using an element that looks the same as a Greek ι, in certain combinations. This means certain words are completely ambiguous without knowledge of the language, or other context. For instance, мщу (I avenge) лицу (face, in dative) are written completely the same way.
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1825: The Etymologies: Tolkien Dec 14, 2019
The father of fictional languages in some ways, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote "The Etymologies" in the 1930's, though they were only published posthumously. In this, it is fairly disorganized collection of words in his Proto-Elvish, and then how they would have changed over time into the Elvish languages of Quenya, Noldorin and Ilkorin, which he features in Lord of the Rings. Unlike his professional work in mapping English etymologies, his etymologies were often changed, though he would never change the Elvish words themselves. Indeed, he even created various steps, inventing Old Nordin, and other attributes which would make this all work reasonably. You can find this in "The Lost Road and Other Writings".
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1824: walrus Dec 13, 2019
Tolkien was a philologists, and didn't just invent languages, but studied older forms of language, Still, he could not find a definitive etymology for 'walrus'; in fact, he came up with six. It is almost certainly Germanic, but could be anything from the Dutch 'walvis' meaning 'whale' (literally 'whale-fish) to possibly coming a root for 'horse', like the Old Norse 'hrosshvalr' ('horse whale'). There are many more ideas as well, like a compound from Dutch 'wal' (shore) and 'reus' (giant).
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