The last week of October and the beginning of November brings together some fairly disparate events, holidays, and emotions. For one, especially here in the U.S., October 31 is Halloween, that strange co-opted holiday where kids dress up in cute or ghoulish costumes and beg for candy from their neighbors. The following day, November 1, however, is All Saints Day—the day of remembrance and celebration of the saints, and the day after that, November 2, is All Souls Day—the day of remembrance for those who have died in the previous year or years before. Just a few days later, depending on the calendar, is Election Day in the U.S. which ushers in a new period of government policies and action. While this particular Election Day isn’t as exciting or grand as the Presidential one last year, for some states who will elect governors and House representatives, it’s all-important.

Given this strange mash-up of events, it seems that nothing would be able to bind them together. Two words, however, can—spirit and conspiracy. What might seem obvious to some, the etymological link between the two words, came as a surprise to me, a surprise that was a little bit delightful, I’ll admit.

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Although not his most famous work, one of Dante Alighieri’s most important ones was a composition entitled De Vulgari Eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular or Concerning Vernacular Eloquence), in which the author discusses the development of the Romance languages. He divides Europe into three portions: to the north, the Germanic languages; to the east, the Greek-based languages, and to the south, the Romance languages. Dante further subdivides the southern languages into three branches – the language of Oc (Occitan), the language of Oïl (now contemporary French), and the language of Sì (Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese). The emblem for these groups is the word “yes.”

In southern France, Monaco, and parts of Italy and Spain, oc was used traditionally for “yes”, whereas in northern France and parts of Belgium, oïl was used. Sì was used in most of Spain, Portugal, and Italy. All three words come from Latin terms of agreement: oc originated in hoc, meaning “this,” oïl from hoc illud, meaning “this is it,” and sì from sic, meaning “thus it is.” While oc and oïl are rarely used in contemporary languages, the sì form is still utilized in Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese (sim).

The Occitan language declined in usage and popularity beginning in the 14th century, around the time that French royal power – seated in northern France – extended its domain over the rest of the country. Eventually, in 1539, the langue d’oïl became the official language of French administration by a piece of legislature known as the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts. This document, signed by King Francis I in the northern city of Villers-Cotterêts, was the second-to-last blow for the Occitan language. The final one was the French Revolution, whose proponents emphasized unity of language, and so encouraged the use of a single French dialect. The Occitan language enjoyed a minor resurgence after World War I, in part due to the spread of Occitan speakers in France and in part due to the emergence of poets, playwrights, and authors from southern France who emphasized their cultural heritage and language.

There are few things that I love more than finding out that two seemingly very different words share the same root. Like the shared history of pomegranate and hand grenade, these connections between word origins sometimes surface in decidedly non-linguistic places. Today’s strange linguistic history comes from Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. McGee’s 700 page tome of food science, history, and myth covers everything from the difference between curds and whey to the development of the French sauce families to the chemical explanation of the affect of cooking on meat pigments. It’s a wildly interesting book for any serious cook or connoisseur, but probably boring for people who don’t share that passion for food.

In his chapter on dairy, McGee discusses the various chemical and physical components of milk, cream, cheese, ice cream, and yogurt (among other products). His section on cream opens with the sentence, “The word cream comes from the Greek chriein, which means ‘to anoint,’ and which is also the root word of Christ (‘the anointed one’).” No, this isn’t a dream that Dan Brown had after falling asleep with a half-eaten pint of Ben and Jerry’s—the cream Christ connection is real. McGee goes on to explain that,

The link between ancient ritual and rich food is oil, the substance used to anoint the chosen, and the defining element of cream. Cream is a form of milk in which the fat globules have become more concentrated than usual, whether by rising to the top in a bottle or spinning off from the heavier water phase in a centrifuge.

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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.”

By now everyone has heard the announcement that the United States’ president Barack Obama is the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. The announcement, which was made at 5 am Eastern Standard time, even surprised President Obama. Of course, criticism from conservatives in the U.S. has already reached fever pitch levels.

Defending their choice, the Peace Prize committee cited Obama’s efforts to create a “a world free from nuclear arms…[Obama] has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the United States is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.” NYTimes

This led me to do a little digging on the etymology of “peace.” The word is steeped in strong images and connotations, it is historically and culturally significant to all peoples in all societies. So what is in the word that brings us all to the same ideas of well-being, harmony, and quietude?

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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.

Last night I had the pleasure of hearing Ronny Cox, the actor who played Drew Ballinger in Deliverance and Richard “Dick” Jones in RoboCop, perform his country western music at a small venue. While Cox has played hundreds of roles in tv and film, I wasn’t expecting his music to be worth a listen, but it was.

One of the songs that piqued my interest was an old cowboy song, “Diamantina Drove” from Australia about the drovers, the equivalent of a cowboy. The song could have been about an American cowboy, it heralded the usual tropes of cattle and open spaces and the call of the frontier, so it got me to thinking about cowboys everywhere — what are they called, what sets them apart country-to-country, when did we first start talking about cowboys etc.

Our term cowboy was first documented in the English language by 1725. A direct translation of the Spanish word vaquero, one who manages cattle from horseback, cowboy has come to mean the same thing — a man employed to take care of grazing cattle on a ranch (OED). Vaquero, of course, is rooted in the word vaca, or cow, and stems from the Latin vacca. Another English word for cowboy, buckaroo, has a debatable etymology. It is generally attributed to an Anglicizing of vaquero, but, apparently, one scholar has suggested that it possibly stems from the Arabic bakara or bakhara, meaning heifer. Other terms include cowpoke, cowhand, and cowpuncher — all originating in the mid- to late-1800s. Regionally specific, cowboy is a term common throughout the west and particularly in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, Buckaroo is used primarily in the Great Basin and California, and cowpuncher mostly in Texas and surrounding states, Wiki.

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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.

For those not in Atlanta and who have not heard any news about what is going on right now, we are in the middle of the biggest flood on record. Although it has been raining for over a week now in Georgia, over the past thirty-six hours more than thirteen inches of rain has accumulated in the metro-Atlanta area. Bridges have collapsed, several hundred people have been evacuated, major expressways are underwater (or under mud due to mudslides), and hundreds of thousands of people are without water. For a city fairly protected from the harsher elements—we rarely receive any snow, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, fires, etc.—this flood has put everyone in a rather apocalyptic mood.

Although parts of the city are in near-crisis situations, it does seem fitting to sit back and take a look at where the word flood comes from etymologically. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the noun as “the flowing in of the tide;” as “a body of flowing water; a river, stream, usually, a large river;” as, in a wider sense, “opposed to land, often contrasted with field and fire;” and finally as “an overflowing or irruption of a great body of water over land not usually submerged; an inundation, a deluge.” Interestingly, the first three definitions are related more to the property of water as different than land—i.e. the fact that water flows—than of an over-swelling of water, as would be our common definition today. I think I’m going to have to start using flood when I’m referencing a river in general, just to switch things up a bit.

So our modern flood hails from a Teutonic background with the Old English flód predating the current spelling. Flod stems from the Old Frisian and Old Swedish flôd. Old Frisian is a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries in the area between the Rhine and Elbe on the European North Sea coast. The Middle Dutch vloet and the Dutch vloed also stem from the Old Frisian and Old Swedish flôd.

Going further back to the 6th to mid 11th centuries in the Old High German, we find flout which manifested in the Middle High German (1050-1350 CE) vluot and then the German flut. In Old Norse, pre-sixth century CE, flood was flô(o with an ‘x’ above it) and in Gothic it was flôdus. Finally, the farthest flood can be traced is to the Old Teutonic flô (o with an ‘x’ over it) and the pre-Teutonic plōtús.

It is with the pre-Teutonic plotús that we see why the action of flowing is so important to the definition of flood. Plōtús comes from the Aryan verbal stem plō, “whence flow, in the primary sense, in accordance with the original function of the suffix -tu, is ‘action of flowing’, though the concrete uses are found in all Teutonic languages.”

I know this little etymology won’t help anyone stay high and dry over the coming days, but I hope it is interesting to know that flood holds so many benign connotations in addition to its overpowering one. Hopefully the rains will stop soon and the city will catch a breath of air from its swimming. Until then, just remember that flood originally refers to the action of flowing—gerunds are everywhere.