Posts filed under 'word origins'
November 20th, 2009
My previous two offerings were about “pair.” Appropriately enough, it has two homonyms in English.
One is “pare,” which can mean “to cut or trim away; peel” — hence, “paring knife.”
It also can mean “to reduce or diminish gradually.” This definition includes the advisory that it’s often used with ”down,” as in, “The House has promised to pare down the cost of the program.” This seems unnecessary — “reduce” and “diminish” already say “down” to me, but that’s idiom for you.
“Pare” can be traced back to the Latin “parare,” for “to set in order, get ready” — essentially the same as “prepare.”
The other homonym is “pear,” a type of tree that always seems to have a partridge in it this time of year.
The “-ear” spelling for the “air” sound is fairly rare — “bear,” “swear” and “wear” spring to mind.
Another is “tear” (the ripping kind). But there’s also “tear” (the crying kind), which rhymes with “hear.”
Sometimes it’s enough to make you tear your hair out until you tear up.
November 19th, 2009
If “pair” means “two,” as discussed previously, how did we get “au pair” to apply to one person? I’m glad I asked.
The word “pair” had its origin in the Latin “paria,” the neutral plural of “par,” which means “equal.”
So a pair is composed of two equal (or similar or corresponding) things.
“Au pair” (in French, literally, “as an equal”) concerns “an arrangement in which services are exchanged on an even basis,” like child care in exchange for room and board.
So there are two parties to an au pair arrangement, but generally only one of them is referred to as an au pair.
November 13th, 2009
In Roman mythology, Cupid was the god of love, traditionally depicted as a winged boy with a bow and arrow. Generically, a cupid (lowercase) is “a naked, winged cherub, as on a valentine.”
The name Cupid can be traced to the Latin verb “cupere,” meaning “to desire.”
From this comes the noun “cupidity” for “strong desire.” However, it’s seldom associated with romantic notions, but rather “wealth, avarice, greed.”
Cupid’s Greek counterpart was Eros (”eros” is Greek for “love”). Generically, “eros” is also all about desire, particularly of a sexual nature, as in “erotic.”
For “love,” the type that’s “a deep and tender feeling of affection,” we have to follow a trail back to the Gothic word “lubo.”
That’s right, Gothic, a Germanic culture too often unfairly thought of as “uncouth, uncivilized, barbaric.”
But Gothic is also a term for a kind of architecture and two types of fiction — atmospheric horror stories and melodramatic tales of romance.
Apparently the Goths knew there was more to love than just sex.
November 9th, 2009
In the interest of thoroughness, I have a few more thoughts about “gigs” and “jigs.”
As noted earlier, the older French “gigue,” for “fiddle,” may have figured in the origin of “jig.” The instrument’s distinctive shape also inspired two “gig-” words:
A “gigot” is “a leg of mutton, lamb, veal, etc.” or “a leg-of-mutton sleeve.”
In Old French, “gigue” also referred to a “long-legged, thin girl.” That gave rise to the French “gigole” for “prostitute.” In English, it’s “gigolo,” which has two principal meanings:
“A man who is paid to be a dancing partner or escort for women.”
“A man who is the lover of a woman and is supported by her.”
Two other “gig-” terms come from different stock:
The prefix “giga-” (”gigabyte,” “gigahertz”) means “one billion.” It comes from the Greek “gigas,” for “giant” — and that’s where our “giant,” “gigantic” and so on originated.
The acronym “GIGO” is a computer term derived from “garbage in, garbage out” — and that’s just what it means.
Surprisingly, the toughest thing to track down in all of this was how “jigger” came to mean a small amount of alcohol. The best explanation I could find is that it’s an alteration of “chigger,” the larva of a family of mites. A mite is mightly small, and so is a 1.5-ounce drink to someone who’s really thirsty.
“Dry martini, jigger of gin. Oh, what a spell you’ve got me in, oh, my. Do I feel high.”
From “Scotch and Soda” by Dave Guard of the original Kingston Trio
November 7th, 2009
The dictionary’s second member of the “gig” gang is a fishing term. It can be “a fish spear” or “a fish line with hooks designed to catch fish by jabbing into their bodies.”
It also can be a verb for such activities.
It’s a contraction of the earlier terms “fishgig” and “fizgig,” which have a fairly long lineage: the Spanish “fisga,” a type of harpoon, from “fisgar”; the Late Latin “fixicare,” the Latin “fixare,” all the way back to the Latin “fixus,” the past participle of “figere” — “to fasten, attach.”
Interestingly, “jig,” which is where this all started (remember?), also can be a fishing term. A jig is “any of various fishing lured that are jiggled up and down in the water.”
So, fish can be caught with a gig or a jig.
Our final “gig” is another slang version, this time for “an official record or report of a minor delinquency, as in a military school” or “punishment for such a delinquency.”
A solid synonym is “demerit.”
November 5th, 2009
The first “gig” to make its way into modern English took a long road. Its most recent ancestor is the Middle English “gigge,” meaning “whirligig,” which is mainly a spinning toy or a merry-go-round.
That one probably descended from Scandinavian words, such as the Danish “gig” — “whirling object” or “top” — and the Norwegian dialectical “giga” — “to shake, totter.”
The same Indo-European base, “ghei-,” meaning “to gape,” is also the ultimate origin of “gape” in English, as well as “giggle.”
This “gig” has three specialized definitions in modern English:
“A light, two-wheeled, open carriage drawn by one horse.”
“A long, light ship’s boat, especially one reserved for the commanding officer.”
“A machine for raising nap on cloth” — from the term “gig mill.”
That “nap” is “the downy or hairy surface of cloth,” which sometimes has to be artificially raised by brushing — as with a gig mill.
The sleeping kind of “nap” — my favorite hobby — has the following lineage: from Middle English “nappen” from Old English “hnappian,” akin to Old High German “hnaffezan” — which sort of looks like an attempt to spell a snoring noise.
Whew, I’m pooped. Time to get back to my hobby.
November 4th, 2009
The first “gig” I can remember was Gig Young, the actor. His birth name was Byron Elsworth Barr; he took Gig Young from a character he played in the 1942 film “The Gay Sisters.” He died in 1978, and his life story is not a happy one. And he’s not in the dictionary.
The other “gig” I’m familiar with is the slang one meaning “a job performing music, especially jazz or rock.” The book “American Slang” pegs its first appearance, among jazz musicians, at around 1905.
The meaning has since been generalized to cover “any job.”
But that “gig” is actually the fourth entry in Webster’s, which means it’s a relatively late arrival.
Check in the rest of the week for my takes on the others. Sorry to leave you hanging, but that’s all the time I have for this gig.
November 3rd, 2009
“The jig is up” is a slang phrase “said of risky or improper activity,” according to Webster’s. This association reflects its origin, which “American Slang” puts at sometime after 1800 as another way of saying, “The criminal enterprise is discovered.”
Its current definition is “that ends it; all chances for success are gone.”
It’s sometimes written improperly as “The gig is up.” There are actually four separate “gigs” in Webster’s, but none is a good fit for the phrase. (I’ll look at the gig family tomorrow.)
How the word “jig” was chosen for it isn’t exactly clear either. In fact, even its association with dancing is speculative. The dictionary says it probably came from the Middle French “giguer,” meaning “to gambol, dance,” which came from “gigue,” “a fiddle.”
The jig is “a fast, springy sort of dance, usually in triple time.” Its motion also inspired “jigsaw” and “jiggle,” which is what Jell-O does.
I wasn’t sure I could fit that in, but apparently there is always room for Jell-O.
October 7th, 2009
“Hobnob” is a word you don’t hear much anymore, maybe because it has more pasts than presents.
It used to be a noun for “a friendly chat,” an adverb for “at random,” and a verb for “to drink together.” Webster’s gives all three the label “now rare.”
What has survived is “hobnob” as a verb for “to be on close terms (with someone); associate in a familiar way.”
So what does this have to do with Ernest Hemingway? I’m glad you asked.
The origin of the word is the Middle English “habben, ne habben” — literally, “to have and not have.”
Yes, film buffs, we have arrived at 1944 and the Howard Hawks movie “To Have and Have Not,” which paired Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, then 19, for the first time.
The script, which literary giant William Faulkner had a hand in, was loosely based on a book by Hemingway.
Other notables in the film were “Stardust” composer Hoagy Carmichael; three-time Oscar winner Walter Brennan; and character actor Sheldon Leonard, better known as producer of four classic TV series: “The Danny Thomas Show,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “I Spy.”
Now that would have been a group to hobnob with.
October 6th, 2009
I’m a big fan of simplicity, but sometimes we try to make English too simple.
Case in point: Here’s an entry in The Associated Press Stylebook — recur, recurred, recurring. Not “reoccur.”
The problem is, there’s a subtle difference between “reoccur” and “recur.”
I concur with trying to avoid “reoccur.” It simply means “to happen again.” So why not just say “happen again” instead of “reoccur,” which seems inelegant.
However, “recur” is perfect for “to appear at intervals.” In other words, for when something occurs again and again.
That’s how we get the adjective “recurrent” for “intermittent.”
All of them can be traced to the Latin verb “currere,” for “to run,” which is also where “current” comes from.
And you thought it came from electrical devices.
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