It’s raining heavily again in Atlanta, and the soothing sound of heavy drops hitting against the roof and windows brings to mind the language of house and home. Both the words “house” and “home” found their way into modern English from the Proto-Germanic. Khusan, for “house” was changed into hus with Old English, and stems from the verb “to hide.” Both words imply shelter, which explains the use of the term “hide” to mean animal skin. While many animals are at home in their skin, throughout our evolution, humans have developed places that go beyond shelter; we have made homes.

“Home” comes from the Proto-Germanic khaim, which differed from the meaning of “house” in those times as it does today. The khaim, or ham, as it traveled into Old English, meant a residence as opposed to simply a shelter. Its Proto-Indo-European root kei, meaning to lie down or settle, rendered this term more inviting and inclusive.

The word “domestic” has very old roots as well, stemming from the Greek domos, and later Latin domus, both meaning “house.” This word has the same origins as the verb “to dominate,” which originally meant to be the head of a household and, later, to be a despot or tyrant. To domesticate an animal — to tame it so that it can safely participate in the home — carries an interesting mix of the old and the modern sense, to dominate.

It’s appropriate to mention also, considering that two Americans were just awarded Nobel Prizes in Economics, that the terms “economics” and “economy” have their roots in ancient concepts of the home. Eco is a derivation of the Greek oikos, meaning an extended family unit that includes the home, land, slaves, and all animals and property. The oikos was run by the oldest male of the family, whose role it was to ensure that all components of the home were running smoothly. Thus, eco now designates a broad, self-sustained unit, as in the terms ecology, ecosystem, and economy, which still carries a bit of its original meaning: management of the home.

The parts of a house also have interesting word-origins. The word “ceiling”, for example, comes from the Latin celare, meaning to conceal, and plays off the word cælum, meaning “heaven” or “sky.”

The origins of the word “wall” are Old Germanic passed on from the Latin vallum, indicating a military rampart or partition. New York’s Wall Street got its name because it ran along the interior defensive wall of a Dutch colonial settlement.

The word “window” is a combination of “wind” and “eye.” It stems from the Old Norse vindauga (vindr meaning “wind” and auga meaning “eye”) and replaced the Old English eagþyrl, meaning “eye-hole.”

The English names for the days of the week have their roots in astrology and ancient cultures. The practice of naming days after heavenly bodies began – at least for the Western world – with the Greeks, and was then adopted by the Romans and Anglo-Saxons. For this reason, the names we are so familiar with draw from Latin and Old English, aligning stars and myths with calendar days. Next time you hear a friend or coworker expressing relief at the end of the week with TGIF, you’ll know that it’s more apt to be thanking goddess!

Monday
From the Old English Monandæg, a combination of mona, meaning “moon”, and dæg, meaning “day.” Most Romance languages use the Latin for “moon” – luna – as in the French lundi and Spanish lunes.

Tuesday
From the Old English Tiwesdæg, meaning “Tyr’s (or Tiw’s/Tew’s Day”), named after the god of war of Norse mythology. Naming the second day of the week after a war god stems from the Romans’ use of Mars for the same day, leading to, among others, the French mardi and Spanish martes.

Wednesday
From the Old English Wodnesdæg, or “Woden’s (Odin’s) Day”, named after an important Germanic and Scandinavian god. The name of this day, too, is borrowed from the Romans, who used the god Mercury for Wednesday. The French is mercredi and the Spanish is miércoles.

Thursday
From the Old English Þurresdæg, meaning “Thor’s Day” after the Norse god of thunder. The Latin equivalent is named after Jupiter, as in the French jeudi and Spanish jueves.

Friday
From the Old English Frigedæg, named after the Anglo-Saxon goddess Frigg. It is based on the Roman goddess Venus, and used in French as vendredi and in Spanish as viernes.

Saturday
From the Old English Sæterdæg, or “Saturn’s Day,” this is the only day to have retained its Latin origins from the god of agriculture. In French it is samedi and in Spanish, sábado.

Sunday
From the Old English Sunnandæg, the day of the sun. Most Romance languages have used the Latin for “Lord’s Day”, as in the French dimanche and Spanish domingo.

You may be surprised to learn how many of the words we use have unusual origins. Having spent centuries in our lexicons, these words have lost their original significations and now take on colloquial meanings. To get back to our roots, let’s examine three common words.

Sabotage
The 20th-century French verb saboter, meaning to accidently or maliciously destroy, stems from an older French word, sabot, meaning “old shoe.” These old shoes were made of wood, and so made walking softly or stealthily quite difficult. To sabotage originally meant to walk noisily; later it came to mean to do something poorly, to make a mess, or to bungle something. Thus, the contemporary understanding of sabotage – to hinder, destroy, tamper with, or obscure – stems from the inability to be courteous while wearing sabots.

Maroon
Maroon as a color stems from the Greek maraon, meaning “chestnut.” Because of their rich hue, chestnuts came to be representative of the color brown and were incorporated into the Old French to mean both the color and the nut. Later, in the early 17th century, the term was used to refer to fugitive slaves in the West Indies and Dutch Guyana – both due to skin color and to the fact that those who were able to escape lived in cimarron, Spanish for a wild forest or thicket. This secondary meaning gives us the contemporary understanding of the verb “to maroon.”

Mystery
The etymology of this word is intricately intertwined with the history of theology. The ancient Greeks referred to their religious rites and doctrines as mysteria and to the people initiated into them as mystes. The root of this word, perhaps, was the verb myein, meaning to close or shut (implying that initiates were sworn to secrecy about the rites they witnessed and performed). The term found its way into the Old French via Latin, and in the early 14th century became widely used in English to mean a religious truth, divine revelation, or the mystical presence of God. This religious usage led to the secular understanding of a mystery as something unclear and difficult to grasp.

When we experience a sensation, we feel it; when something “makes sense” we get it; when we “get a sense” of something, we understand it; and when something is entirely senseless, it is stupid, out of touch with reality. The word “sense” has many practicable applications, and all seem to point to the idea that to sense is to get a whiff of the quintessence of a situation.

The experience of “sensing” can be as vague as a premonition or as concrete as touch – it can be physical, emotional, ideological, or spiritual – but it typically follows experience and precedes idea formation. How did our vast and varied understanding of the word “sense” come to be? The answer’s in the etymology.

The word sense stems from the Proto-Indo-European root sent-, meaning “to go, to strive, to have in mind, or to perceive.” It found its way into the Latin sensus as a word for feeling or perceiving, and later into European languages from the 15th-century Old French sens, of the same meaning. The early 17th century saw the development of the word “sensation” to mean endowed with sense or the senses.

How did we come to the understanding that the stimuli received from sensory perception are akin to rational judgments, as in “to come to one’s senses”?

In the mid-16th century, philosophers adopted the term to apply to the healthy exercise of one’s mental faculties, and thus to sanity. It was at that point in history when the word “sense” became linked to prudence more than perception and the term “senseless” was born. Although to be senseless literally means to be without the capacity to feel and perceive, the conversational understanding implies a lack of intelligence or purpose.

The meaning, however, remains intact: an act that is senseless proceeds from an actor who has not accurately felt or perceived a situation. Whether he is determined ill, stupid, or saintly by contemporaries depends solely on the outcome of his actions. Whether he “sensationalizes” a situation – a 19th-century term used originally in journalism – depends on whether or not he exploits human “sensation” – a 17th-century medical term chronicling bodily response to external stimulation.

Many a quarrel has ended with a search for the nearest dictionary. The answer to a question of connotation versus denotation, implied or explicit meaning, and historical, social, or academic understanding of a term finds an ending point with a simple glance over the established meaning of a word.

From the Latin definire, whose root is finis, or boundary, through the 14th-century Old French definir, meaning to terminate, we have come to the contemporary understanding of defining as the act by which a clear, precise, and unmistakable meaning is determined. Furthermore, defining implies limiting, including only all possible meanings and leaving out any other interpretations. For this reason, the verb “define” has been used in the fields of logic and mathematics for over five centuries as a rigid line of demarcation to categorize the properties of some element, act, equation, or entity. Definitions seem to represent the terminus of a study – the point at which a final and fundamental verdict is reached and the parameters of a situation are unambiguous.

And yet, despite such sturdy and unassailable proofs as are found in a dictionary, we frequently find ourselves in arguments over definitions, as evidenced by the recent wildly contrasting uses of the term socialism. These miscommunications and mal entendus that engender discord rarely result in agreement on a precise or exclusive definition.

In a broader sense, definitions help us to form our understanding of the world. When we read a definition, we are able to attach value to particular concepts and things, to decide that something is good or bad, desirable or undesirable, pleasant or unpleasant. As we learn more, we create a sort of inventory of definitions in our personal lexicons. In human hands, even something that by its very definition – for lack of a truer term – must be concrete and limited takes on an air of fallibility, of subjectivity, and of fertile ground for contest, quarrel, and questioning.

The current debate over health care has some people in a panic, and many of the concerns being voiced (such as the concern over granny-killing government death panels), are unfounded and irrational.

Judging by the news coverage of recent town-hall meetings, we have become a nation of health care phobics. Because fear is old and pervasive, many languages derive the names of phobias from the basic Western language template of Greek.

The word “phobia” originated in the Greek word phóbos (φόβος), or “morbid fear.”

Here are some real phobias that may shed some light on the Health Scare debate:

Here’s to Friday, and to making it on the Lexiophile’s list of the Top 100 Language Blogs of 2009! Thanks to everyone who voted. Since it’s customary to raise a glass and toast in celebration, here is a language lovers list of the origins of common cocktails and spirits:

Cocktail

Cocktail is an interesting word with an obscure origin. The first recorded use was in 1803’s The Farmers Cabinet, and the first definition appeared in print in May of 1806 in a New York newspaper. The word is of American origin, and there are several competing theories about it’s etymology. Here are just a few of the interesting ones:

In the 18th century, it was a common practice for bartenders to drain the dregs of all the barrels and mix them together, serving the result (the equivalent of a bar-mat’s end of night remnants) at a reduced price. “Cock” was another name for spigot, and “tailings” is the last bit of alcohol, so this drink was called “cock-tailings,” shortened to “cocktail.”

Another story places the word’s origin squarely in 18th century New Orleans, where an apothecary named Peychaud (of bitters fame) served his guests a mix of brandy, sugar, water and bitters in an egg-cup. The drink eventually acquired the name of the egg-cup–”cocquetier” in French–which his guests shortened to “cocktay” and then “cocktail.” The French word “Coquetel” may also have had something to do with “cocktail”; it was the name of a mixed drink from Bordeaux served to French officers during the American Revolution.

What we know for sure is that cocktails are made from mixing liquor with some kind of juice or bitters, and that when mixed properly with great ingredients, they are delicious. So, here are the etymologies of the common spirits used in cocktails, followed by the story of some of our most popular mixes:

Read the rest of this entry »

Following up with our look at the origins of words related to food and spirits, here is a brief history of the language of beer:

One of the world’s oldest and certainly most well-loved beverages has a history that dates back thousands of years BC. Spread through Europe by Germanic and Celtic tribes, beer’s basic ingredients have not changed drastically from its Neolithic roots.

Along with a starch source such as barley and an ingredient to aid fermentation, such as yeast, beer contains a plethora of flavoring agents like fruits, honey, plants, spices, and most typically, hops. To help us gain a deeper enjoyment of this thirst-quenching beverage, we can examine the etymology of its components and the various kinds of beers that exist today.

The word “beer” most likely stems from a 6th-cenury Germanic loan from Latin. Monks – who were the first Europeans to brew beer – borrowed from the Latin bibere, meaning “to drink.” We can see traces of this usage in the English verb “imbibe.” Another version links beer with the Proto-Germanic word beuwo, meaning “barley.”

The two primary types of beer are lagers and ales. Ales are fermented and brewed at higher temperatures than lagers (a difference of about 20 degrees Fahrenheit) and use a different type of yeast. Ales are far more prevalent than lagers, and are characterized by a full-bodied flavor. The term “ale” stems from the Proto-Germanic aluth, meaning beer, and perhaps prior to that from the Proto-Indo-European alum, a word having connections to sorcery and magic. Lagers derive their name from the German Lager, meaning “storehouse.” Until the early 15th century, only the term “ale” was used to refer to beer of any sort.

Stouts, porters, and wheat beers are types of ales. Stouts, for their robust flavor, derive their name from the adjective designating something proud, valiant, and strong. Porter also derives its name from its strength, acquiring this title in the early 18th century due to being high in alcohol content and cheap – a favorite amongst laborers.

Here is a little something to get the weekend started: a brief walk through the language of wine.

The original nectar of the gods has a history – and therefore an etymology – that dates back to our ancient forbearers. Here you will find the sources of the popular names we use today for some of the more common intoxicating grapes.

PINOT NOIR
The “pinots” entered the English language in the early 20th-century from the French wine varietal of the same name. “Pinot” is a variation of the French pineau, from the prefix pin, or pine tree, and the diminutive feminine suffix –eau, and noir is French for the dark red, almost black color of the grapes. The varietal gets its name from the pinecone-shaped formation of grape clusters.

CABERNET SAUVIGNON
This cross between the Cabernet franc and the Sauvignon blanc grape developed in the 17th century in southwestern France. The “sauvignon” title is believed to be derived from the French sauvage, meaning “wild.” An ancient vintage, the Cabernet sauvignon may even have originated during the times of Pliny the Elder in Rome, where he wrote of the Biturca grape. This name bears resemblance to the “Petite Vidure” name used in the 18th century in France to refer to modern Cabernet.

MERLOT
This red wine varietal gets its name from the French Occitan word meaning “young blackbird.” Two components link the merlot grape with blackbirds, the first being the grape’s dark blue color, and the second being the bird’s propensity for eating grapes.

PINOT GRIGIO
This mutation of the Pinot noir grape gets its name from the French pin, meaning pine tree, and the suffix –eau, designating a cone from the pine tree. The varietal gets its name from its pinecone-shaped formation of grape clusters. The term “grigio” is Italian for gray, describing the grape’s grayish-blue coloring.

CHARDONNAY
Originating in the early 20th century, this grape is named after the town in France where the wine was first made. Before the grape varietal was recognized as “chardonnay”, it was already used in the French town of Chablis and known as Chablis wine. This term has a much older history, dating back to the 16th century where it was abbreviated from bois chablis, or deadwood, as a reference to grapes fallen due to high winds.

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