Etymology is fascinating to me. Most recently I was reading about the history of the word “one”. Have you ever wondered why it’s pronounced wun instead of rhyming with own? According to the sources I’ve read (including the awesome Online Etymology Dictionary), it originally did. In fact, the word only still uses that pronunciation, and derives from the same root. The change apparently began in the 14th century in southwestern England, and by the 18th century it was in common usage.
Related: did you know that the term “one night stand” was originally used in reference to theater performance? It wasn’t until the 1960’s that it was first used in a sexual sense. Also, “one-of-a-kind” was first used in the 1960’s as well. On the other hand, “one fell swoop” was first used by Shakespeare, in Macbeth.
GeeIWonder
on 20 Nov 08Seen The Adventure of English? Right up your alley.
sodium11
on 20 Nov 08I’ll see your Shakespeare and raise you: the phrase “the sooner the better” appears in Beowulf.
sodium11
on 20 Nov 08Yeah, i know, it doesn’t have the word “one” in it.
still kind of interesting … maybe?
Dave Sailer
on 20 Nov 08“One fell swoop” always sounds better as “one swell foop”. But I’m someone who likes the sound of “snooble hoopy”, “snow chewing”, “angry beef”, “monkey wench”, “breath cancer”, “skeeber”, and “truth decay”. Guess that’s just me. (I have more…)
Alejandro Moreno
on 20 Nov 08I love Etymology as well, and that online dictionary looks awesome. Thanks!
Now I just need to find a spanish and french one :)
GeeIWonder
on 20 Nov 08Now I just need to find a spanish and french one :)
It’s called Latin.
Dave Sailer
on 20 Nov 08But wait! There’s more! Squirrelly stuff!
Double-Tongued Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Addictionary
Word A Day
No doubt someone can use at least one of these.
Mathew Patterson
on 20 Nov 08Another fascinating book in this area is Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue. It is absolutely excellent.
Andrew Pietsch
on 20 Nov 08I recently got the book Six Words You Never Knew Had Something To Do With Pigs and thoroughly enjoyed it. It covers lots of non pig words too, like for instance “travel” comes from the root “travail”.. any long journey in middle ages was a pain. It explains the history of the language too, like why we raise cows and eat beef. I highly recommend it.
Dave Rutledge
on 21 Nov 08Semantic Antics is right up your alley.
Paul Leader
on 21 Nov 08Shakespear was responsible for a remarkable amount of modern English phrases, and words.
To quote Bernard Levin (apologies for length):
If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “It’s Greek to me”, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise – why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then – to give the devil his due – if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I were dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then – by Jove! O Lord! Tut, tut! for goodness’ sake! what the dickens! but me no buts – it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare. (Bernard Levin. From The Story of English. Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil. Viking: 1986).
Phil McThomas
on 21 Nov 08Those 37signals weekend retreats must just fly by.
:)
Michael
on 21 Nov 08Something tells me you’re a Christian, Jamis. Lately I’ve noticed a funny correlation between that sort of etymology interest and Christianity. No idea how or why and it’s purely anecdotal. Am I right or wrong?
ffxi gil
on 21 Nov 08good!
ffxi gil
on 21 Nov 08if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance
August
on 21 Nov 08English pronunciation is a pretty complex issue. The period during which the word “one” changed its pronunciation was the same time as the the “Great Vowel Shift”, during which there were rapid and drastic changes in how vowels are pronounced in English. It’s the biggest reason why English language speakers pronounce their vowels differently from pretty much every other Western language.
You might also want to look into Chancery Standard (also called Chancery English), which was the London Middle English dialect that became the standard written form of the language in the late 14th Century (for government documents), and is at the root of our unusual spelling system (English spelling is complex, but despite popular belief is not arbitrary-English words are often spelled based on the conventions of the language they come from originally rather than on how they are pronounced, and other spellings come from a variety of dialects, to more readily distinguish between words that are similar but not identical). If you can get a hold of the OED-the proper one, not the abridged—then you can trace the history of pretty much every word in the language.
The real surprise, when you study English etymology, is how few genuinely English word there are in the language. Old English had a lexicon of about 900 words, and we use only a handful of them today. In fact, despite heavy use of the prefix “Anglo” to describe all things English, there’s essentially no identifiable traces of Anglo language or culture left in English. Pretty much everything can be traced back to the Saxons, some other Western Germanic tribes, and then later the Normans, who pushed the Angles out. Old English (or West Anglo-Saxon) is incredibly difficult, despite it’s tiny lexicon, but it’s grammar and syntax, especially where poetry is concerned, is surprisingly sophisticated, and definitely worth looking into.
Don Schenck
on 21 Nov 08Cool: at sporting events, there’s a rhythmic clapping sequence that’s often followed by the cheer, “Let’s go!”.
Clap, clap, clap clap clap, clap clap clap clap .. “Let’s go!”
The origin is in Morse Code, and it’s a “rough” version of “73”, which is Morse Code shorthand for “Best regards”.
Now, every time you hear that at a baseball game, you’ll know what it means!
GeeIWonder
on 21 Nov 08Ok, well if we’re doing them I got one. Y’know how they keep score in tennis?
15-Love (etc.)
It’s actually from french originally, the official language of the tour, where the scoreboard would read 15-0 and be read as 15-L’oeuf (the egg) (etc.)
Tore Darell
on 21 Nov 08And if you’re wondering why 11 and 12 aren’t called oneteen and twoteen it’s because they’re remnants from the old base-12 numbering system (double geek point!). Eleven and twelve mean “one left” and “two left” over from the tenth digit on our hands. Speaking of left, why does right have two meanings (right choice vs right side of the road)? “Left” actually means “weak”, and the left hand is usually weaker than the “right” one. Left can also mean suspicious or just plain wrong. There’s a reason Jesus is the right hand of God ;)
Another interesting and similar site is Behind the Name which has etymologies for first names.
Jamis
on 21 Nov 08@Michael, indeed I am a Christian, though I admit to being very curious how anything in this post pointed to that. :) I’ve known several atheists who loved etymology and word play, so it’s definitely not just christians who love etymology.
@Tore, I had never heard about the vestigial base-12 number system, but reading around now I find many references to it. That’s absolutely fascinating—most interesting thing I’ve learned today!
Richard
on 22 Nov 08Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.
Catherine
on 23 Nov 08@Michael — How strange (and stranger still that you were correct)! I have an unhealthy fondness for words and etymology, but I’m agnostic at best. I’d guess it’s simply who you run into: I don’t know any word-loving (—not to be confused with Word-loving) Christians, but I don’t have many Christian friends.
Frankie Roberto
on 23 Nov 08Hmm, the problem with etymology is that we usually have very little evidence to go on, and so you have to very careful when you read about the supposed origins of words, as they quite often turn out to be disproven, or at least disputed.
The Language Log seems to agree with the Shakespearian origin of ‘one fell swoop’ though (see http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002767.html), however a lot of neologisms ascribed to Shakespeare may in fact date back much earlier – it’s just that Shakespeare is one of the few documented bits of language from that era…
CJ Curtis
on 24 Nov 08I’ve learned something today.
I finally know what 15/Love means. I’ve wondered that for 20 years…just never had the inclination to find out.
:)
Allan
on 27 Nov 08I too am a fan of etymology. I enjoy trying to figure why some things are spelled the way they are. For instance, much of English is derived from Dutch (Platt Deutsch) ... the word “to” from German “zu” to “tö” in OE … we’ve just dropped the umlaut but kept the pronunciation.
The s was added to “island” on the mistaken believe that it was related to the Latin isle … it isn’t, it’s from a Nordic word and was originally spelled iland.
Ever wonder why give, have, and others have the silent e at the end but the inside vowel isn’t long? Thank the Normans who had a rule that word couldn’t end in a v so the e was added.
As for me, I always use “thru” instead of “through” and “tho” instead of “though” (and altho).
This discussion is closed.