2144: black, bleach, bleak, blank... Oct 28, 2020

The word 'black' and the word 'blank', going way back are related, and while the base assumption might be that they are both void, this is not the source. Indeed, 'blanch', 'bleak', and 'bleach' which actually means 'make white' comes from the same root. There is a presumed Proto-Indo-European root *bʰleg- relating to fire, and drawing from the sense both of darkness from soot and other combustion, but also radiance—such as the Sanskrit भर्ग (bharga) 'radiance'—relating to white light and also probably ashes. This is relates the French and Spanish 'blanc/o' to 'black', all of which have a Germanic root; that said, the Modern German 'schwartz' is obviously not related, and instead shares a root with 'swarthy' meaning 'dark; dirty'.

2143: Productivity of 'fruit' Oct 27, 2020

The idea of fruit having a more generic sense of 'productivity' is fairly obvious considering phrases like "fruit of the womb" (children) and its tongue-in-cheek offshoot "fruit of the loom" (clothing) or just 'fruitful' all having meanings not relating to tree-fruit. Indeed, etymologically this is true many times over considering words like the Latin 'frui' (enjoy), German 'brauchen' (to need), and so forth all originate from the Proto-IndoEuropean root *bʰruHg- (to benefit from). This pattern of success, enjoyment, and physical productive creation exists across many other languages. The sense in English for many centuries was anything that came from the ground, including vegetables, which, like with apples, gained more specific meaning over time. NB the English 'blade'—for both swords and leaves, as in grass—originated with the botanical meaning, and shares an etymological root with this very productive 'fruit'.

2142: South African 'k*ffer' & Hebrew כפרה‎ (redemption) Share Same Arabic Cognate Oct 26, 2020

The Arabic كفر (k-f-r) is the source of the very offensive South African slang 'kaffer', but also to the Hebrew כפרה‎ (kapará) which in modern slang is a term of endearment. This is because the Arabic word meaning as a verb 'to disbelieve' can be used as a noun, كَافِر‎ (kāfir), essentially to mean ‘infidel’. This word comes from Bantu—the Africans of this region of East Africa having extensive contact historically—but has now been taken up in other languages as an offensive term for black people. Meanwhile, the Hebrew כפרה‎ (kapará) literally means "atonement; redemption", and also practically 'sacrifice'. This connection then to 'infidel' may seem odd, but it may seem even odder than the Semitic root relating these words means 'village'. Essentially, an infidel would be someone outside the village, and in other Semitic languages it came to refer to a more generic covering, or in this case protection. The phrase in Modern Hebrew comes from Judeo-Moroccan Arabic 'nímšī kapā́ra ʿalēk', or literally “I will go as atonement for you”, as a way to express humility—sort of like with ciao—and abbreviated as כפרה‎.

2141: "Loansounds" in Hebrew: [tʃ] Oct 25, 2020

Hebrew has no letter to represent [tʃ] (like in CHew) but there are two different traditions to draw from to do this. The way that was used for Yiddish, which did have this sound regularly, was to write טש (T-SH) as is used in קטשופ (ketchup). This word is also notable because it doesn't use the for of פ when it appears at the end of the word, ף, where one would be expected. Because the sound only exists in new loanwords, what Hebrew usually does for other foreign sounds instead is to add a sort of apostrophe (׳) known as a 'geresh' to indicate a variant. In this case, 'crunch' is written as קרונצ׳, as a variant of צ normally for /ts/. This is also used for instance for the [dʒ] sound (as in 'Jump'), written as a variant of ג which usually represents [g].

2140: Semantically Similar; Etymologically Different: -ment & -wise Oct 24, 2020

A lot of word in English that take the nominalizing ‘-ment’ suffix come from Romance languages, but this is not really related to the adverbial suffix in French ‘-ment’ such as with ‘‎finale’ + ‘-ment’ for ‘finalement’ (finally), nor its equivalents in other Romance languages like the Spanish ‘-mento’. This comes from the Latin the ablative form of ‘mens’, which means ‘mind’. In effect therefore, it is conceptually and functionally similar to the English ‘-wise’ that mean ‘in the manner of’ like ‘clockwise’, but which comes from a word (‘wise’) meaning ‘mind; manner’. The Latin was a feminine word, and hence the forms of the words to which it affixes are feminine, such as ‘vivement’ (lively) coming from ‘vive’, the feminine form of ‘vif’. The English -ment is also from Latin, but in this case it comes from a completely different word, ‘-mentum’.

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2139: excruciate and crucifiction Oct 23, 2020

Christianity historically has had a large influence on languages around the world, and many phrases like "one's cross to bear" have entered mainstream lexicon. One example people may not even realize though comes from 'excruciate' which can refer to anything being exceptionally bad or unpleasant. The Latin Latin 'excruciat-' however means 'tormented' and comes from 'crux' meaning 'cross' i.e. as if being crucified. Some have contested the idea that the was so literal and point also to the use of "crux interpretum" or "point of interpretation" such as a decision that is impossible to make, and thus stress-inducing but certainly the connotations will always be strong either way.

2138: knight Oct 22, 2020

When one thinks of a Medieval knight, ideas of nobility likely arise. Indeed, for much of history in different places, only the upper echelons of society could participate in wars. However, the German 'Knecht' means 'servant' and comes from the came root. This root, *knehtaz, has many derivatives among other Germanic languages, and in English it originally meant 'servant' or 'boy'.

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2137: ciao Oct 21, 2020

Especially in Italy but also around Europe more broadly thanks in part to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ‘ciao’ is a common greeting. As might be discerned from the fact that it is used for both farewells and meeting, it has a generic meaning along the likes of ‘aloha’ (love) or ‘shalom’ [שלום‎] (‘peace’), but in this case it comes as a variation to a dialectal form of Italian ‘schiavo’ meaning ‘I am your slave’, shortened from the Latin phrase ‘servus humillimus, domine spectabilis’ (I am your humble servant, admirable lord). In that sense, it is a gesture of humility. However, in the Italian, like ‘slave’ itself, the word also comes from the same root as ‘Slav’, but in Greek Σκλάβος (sklábos) and Latin ‘sclāvus’ the word has a [k] that is not seen in either English or Italian but is still seen in German ‘Sklave’. This is also connected with the Greek κλάβος (klábos) meaning ‘fame; renown’, which was also itself used as a greeting, but in any case in Italian [skl] becomes [sch] as with ‘ciao’ (or ‘schiavo’) . The [s] at the beginning just got dropped off.

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2136: Biblical Hills* in Modern English Oct 20, 2020

There are are some mountains identified in the New Testament which have now become words totally detached from the original meaning in many other languages. 'Armageddon' is a Greek word but it comes via the Hebrew Har Megido (הר מגידו‎) meaning ‘hill of Megiddo’; it is now called Tel Megido (תל מגידו) or just 'Megido', with Tel meaning 'mount'. Conversely, 'calvary' has taken on the meaning as the name for a mountain, but comes from a Latin calque of the Greek Γολγοθα (golgotha), as an imitation of the Hebrew גולגולת (gulgōlet) meaning 'skull'.

2135: Metathesis as a Grammatical Feature Oct 19, 2020

Metathesis is a process that can affect words from any language, and involves the sounds internally moving around, but not every language does it for the same reason. Some fairly innocuous English examples include 'nuclear' to something like 'nucular' /ˈnjuːkjʊlər/ or 'asterisk' like 'asterix' /ˈæstərɪks/. In Hebrew, there are a few examples of this in loanwords like נמל (namél) from the Greek λιμήν (limḗn), and how the Bible contains both כֶּֽבֶשׂ‎ (keves) and כֶּֽשֶׂב‎ (kesev) to mean 'lamb'. Moreover even in normal cases it is actually a part of the grammar. The binyan hitpael used for reflexive verbs actually demonstrates metathesis with the prefix (hit-) and the first consonant of the stem when there is an alveolar fricative. For instance, this occurs with:

סכל‎ (skl) --> הִסְתַּכֵּל‎ (histakkēl) = "he looked at..."

where the T (תַּ) follows the S (ס), but this does not happen with

לבש‎ (lbš) --> הִתְלַבֵּש‎ (hitlabbēš) = "he got dressed"

2134: Lifting and Stealing Oct 18, 2020

A number of languages have a connection between words meaning 'to lift' and theft. In the case literally of 'lift' it has been suggested it might actually be related to the Gothic 𐌷𐌻𐌹𐍆𐍄𐌿𐍃 (hliftus) meaning 'theif'. If so, it would have a connection to the Latin 'cleptus' (Greek κλέπτω (kléptō)), or in other words the same root as 'cleptomaniac'. Indeed the Greek has a far more general meaning including not only theft per se but also cheating and disguising.

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2133: The Basics of 'Basis' Oct 17, 2020

A lot of basics principles (and quirks) of English language history can be seen through the word 'basis'. First off, although the Greek is βάσις (básis) the root first entered English as 'base', and 'basis' entered via a more direct etymological path a few centuries later. Moreover, although it looks completely different, the word is related to 'come'. In Greek, the word means 'step' as in a stair, and likewise even 'step' in English means in a basic sense 'platform' or a measure of walking. Both 'basis' and 'come' are traced back to a Proto-Indo-European root *gʷem-.

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2132: The Evolution of 'Idiot' in Hebrew Oct 16, 2020

The Hebrew word אידיוט (idyót) is a loan word meaning 'idiot', probably coming as a loan word through Russian. This word however, in many languages, was adopted from the Greek, whose meaning there was more or less neutral, and changed into something explicitly negative, as happened in English. This is seen clearly through another Hebrew word הדיוט (hedyót) which come from the name Greek word ἰδιώτης (idiṓtēs) with both of them meaning 'layman' or 'regular', as in someone who is not educated on a particular subject. but not necessarily stupid as the modern sense implies.

2131: 'Dexter' in Heraldry Means on the Left... Oct 14, 2020

In heraldry, such as coats of arms, the term 'dexter' means refers to when an animal faces the left. In general, the word 'dexter' and all its derivatives like 'dexterity' in some sense or another have the meaning of 'on the right'. Indeed, across other languages as well as across the various meaning of 'right'—the actual direction, laws, morality—the word retains the meaning and connotation. In the case of heraldry, this is in reference to the bearers perspective rather than the depiction, similar to how people refer to 'stage right'.

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2130: The Relation between Gossip and Relations Oct 14, 2020

Gossip and siblings are connected...and also they have an etymological relation. Upon first glance, those two words might not look alike, and that's because both have second element connected to it. With the common element being 'sib', 'gossip' comes as a noun from 'god-' from the same pattern as 'godfather' or 'godmother': in this case god-sib(ling). Eventually its meaning moved to that of 'neighbor' and then women invited to attend birth, still mostly in keeping with the meaning of non-blood family. The association those people will have however to idle chatter is a consistent throughout time apparently, because within about 200 years or so the word went from meaning 'relation' to meaning what it does today, and this exact process happened in other languages too.

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2129: -ling Oct 13, 2020

The suffix '-ling' is used as a suffix to make nouns, often but not always diminutive. These range from things like occupations (e.g. 'underling' and 'hireling'), terms for relation like 'sibling', 'youngling' and 'darling' (sort of), and certainly the diminutive uses like 'duckling', 'gosling', or ‘sapling' and even some rarer ones like 'nestling' (bird chicks, or also baby rabbits). 'Fingerling' is the name for baby bony fish too, following this pattern, but the first half refers to the fact that young salmon among other types of these fish have stripes. There are plenty more, and while this suffix is somewhat productive, it is used generally for older words these days.

2128: dope vs. dopamine Oct 12, 2020

While dope (as in drugs, particularly heroine) causes someone to have a chemical reaction with a rush dopamine, these words are not related however. 'Dope' originally meant 'thick sauce' and as such refers to things that make one slow, or just a slow person or especially a horse. Dopamine on the other hand comes as a combination 'dopa' and 'amine' (a type of chemical compound), with 'dopa' originating as a abbreviation (from the German) for dihydroxyphenylalanine, which by the way has nothing to do with thick sauces.

2127: Empathetic vs. Empathic Oct 11, 2020

There are two variants, 'empathetic' and 'empathic' which people use for more or less the same purpose. There are some regional differences certainly, but the more commonly used and the more generally accepted is 'empathic'. Due to the relation with 'sympathetic' however, there has been a gradual rise also of the word 'empathetic', especially in less formal contexts, which would follow a similar pattern ostensibly.

2126: Chai vs. Tea Oct 10, 2020

Around the world, lots of languages use a world like 'tea' and many others use 'chai' to describe the same thing; English uses both words but to describe the different preparation of the same plant-leaves. The word 'chai' comes to English via Arabic or Russian, ultimately from Mandarin ch'a, which also led to the now rare 'cha' or 'char' used in the 16th century. The word 'tea' came in the 17th century as a later variant (pronounced [tei] like 'pay') and also comes from this Chinese root, but through the Malay 'teh' (via the Dutch who held colonies there). The words in language like German, French, Dutch and so on that have the T come from this root, and the others like Greek, Farsi, Russian, and Arabic take the more direct Chinese root.

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2125: What Gets Overlooked with the Term 'Pythagorean' Oct 9, 2020

The word 'pythagorean' for many might conjure up the phrase 'pythagorean theorem' from geometry. While it is true that Pythagoras was mathematical in nature, he was a cult leader. The he also gave his name to Pythagoreanism which involve worship of him, and believed in natural harmonies in the world expressed through numbers to the point that the followers at one point murdered a man who argued for the existence of √2, an irrational number unable to be written as a fraction. They also practiced vegetarianism, and not urinating towards the Sun. It is however, the formula for the perimeter of right triangles, a² + b² = c², for which the word 'pythagorean' is most often associated.

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