JeremyMallin, Funny. A character in this show who was declared by others to be disgruntled, argued that she used to be "perfectly gruntled".
Now I'm wondering if "gruntled" is a word that was ever commonly used.
incrediblemelk, TIL the word 'admiral' derives from Arabic 'emir' ('amir' – أَمِير) meaning 'commander'
but it's unlike other Arabic words that entered English, like alchemy and algebra, which use the Arabic definite article 'al' (which you might recognise from terrorist group al-Qaeda ("The base"), media organisation Al Jazeera ("The Peninsula") or the illegally destroyed Gazan hospital al-Shifa ("the healer")
because of this, folk etymologies try to say 'admiral' comes from a whole Arabic phrase, e.g. 'amir al-baḥr' – أَمِير اَلْبَحْر "commander of the sea", which was the title for the leaders of the Fatimid navy from the 10th to 12th centuries
but that's maybe just a coincidence. Apparently it's an added Latin suffix '-alis', because (without wading over my head into Latin linguistics) Latin has very few words that end in 'ir'. The word 'vir' ("man") is thought to be a contraction or syncope of the Old Latin 'viros'
The Fatimid navy mainly fought the Byzantine navy in Sicily and southern Italy, though – so this may be how the 'amir' part entered Latin
George of Antioch, a Byzantine Christian military officer who served the Norman king Roger II of Sicily, had previously worked for the Emir of Ifriqiya, Tamim ibn al-Muizz; his title of "commander-in-chief' was Latinised in the 13th century as "ammiratus ammiratorum"
The 12th-century Latin word 'amiralis' evolved into 'admiralis' in 13th-century Norman and Middle French, under the influence of the Latin prefix 'ad-', which benefited from the semantic chime with 'admirari' (to admire, to respect)
AllEndlessKnot, May is #NationalAsparagusMonth so the #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is ASPARAGUS/ASPERSION #wotd #asparagus #aspersion
magela, Because I've seen this a lot lately:
It's "rein in," not "reign in" (unless you're saying someone is ruling over a territory or domain, i.e., "she reigns in Spain").
Rein in: comes from the act of pulling on the reins of a horse or other mounted animal. Means to place limits upon, to control.
Similarly, "free rein," not "free reign."
Free rein: implies letting go of control over someone or something. Letting it run free without the pull of the rein.
schoudaan, Have you ever wondered why recovery sounds like you're covering something again? It's just coincidence!
Recover goes back to Latin "recuperare", and is ultimately related to English "receive". Moreso than receive, however, recover retains the repetition sense of the re- prefix: it's about taking something back again, whether that is an object, or your health, or whatever. Covering things has nothing to do with it.
For me personally, that's quite a discovery.
Cassandra, @schoudaan I see what you did there :D
schoudaan, @Cassandra It wasn't even really on purpose 😅
tallandtrue, I'll be more careful using the word "schmuck" after reading this post on the Yiddish origin of words by #DeanKoorey for the #AustralianWritersCentre's weekly Q&A! 😳 #words #etymology
Link to Writer's Centre website: https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/qa-the-origin-of-glitch-shemozzle-and-more/
mapologies, (edited ) Among #insects, bees stand out as crucial pollinators, small but vital for ecosystem health and agricultural productivity. What about their etymology?
#savethebees #etymology #mapologies #entomology #map #etymologymaps #ecology #HONEY #abeja #bee
CelloMomOnCars, Ukrainians win for best onomatopoeic word.
courtcan, @mapologies I cannot possibly Express in any words or any ancestors of any words how happy this chart makes me. This apiphile and hobby linguist is ending her day on a really good note. Thank you! 😄❤️🤘🖖🐝
schoudaan, Weird #etymology: 'weird' originally meant fate or fortune. It got its modern meaning from the weird sisters, goddesses of fate. Because they were portrayed as uncanny, the word weird shifted its meaning.
Further back, it comes from a root *wer-, which means to turn. The idea of turning is often used for processes of becoming and the future: something turns into something, or turns out well.
The original meaning is still present in the suffix -ward, like backward and inward.
mapologies, We hope you have an awesome #SaturdayNight
Etymology map of Saturday
https://mapologies.com/time/
tml, @mapologies “pool day” might be the literal etymology for lördag etc but the meaning is “bathing day”.
mapologies, @tml we will change it, thanks!
JeremyMallin, #RandomThoughts
How did Brits ever get "Spain" from "España"? 🤔None of the vowel signs and not even all of the consonant sounds.
JeremyMallin,
apodoxus, @JeremyMallin True but close enough... Seems like nitpicking to me. Deutchland is Germany in English and Tyskland in Swedish. That's plenty of other nonsensical examples compared to missing one soft consonant.
paninid, In the Russian Empire, there were several political institutions called "Soviets", which were advisory councils to the ruling Emperors.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviets emerged as organs of revolutionary power, with Vladimir Lenin proposing the motto "All power to the Soviets!"
paninid, @darlingofinana
How much of that is a symptom of Russian #culture, mindset, and psyche?
trans_caracal, @paninid @darlingofinana "Russians have inherently authorian mindset" next thing you will start talking about freedom gene aren't you? I don't like orientalist myths very much.
Loukas, #Easter #etymology fact:
In the UK people eat 'Simnel' cakes at this time of year. Slightly earlier Swedes start eating 'semla' buns, for Lent.
Both names - semla and simnel - come ultimately from the Greek σεμίδαλις, meaning fine flour, from which we also get 'semolina.'
(The route from Greek to Swedish and English goes via German Semmel and Latin simila).
Ra, @Loukas @Loukas ...all manner of choc eggs, and hot cross buns, sure; you can't swing a cat without hitting any of those at this time of the year in London, for decades. I've never even heard of 'Simnel' cakes let alone seen one; semolina, sure, but Simnel. They look interesting tho'. I'll keep my eye out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simnel_cake
Loukas, @Ra I used to eat them every Easter in London in the 1980s and see them in recipe books and local bakers.
AllEndlessKnot, The surprisingly (perhaps) connected origins of "Easter" and "East". https://youtube.com/shorts/4dDgfr3AVFs
#etymology #WordNerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #Easter #east
incrediblemelk, Does your mind ever seize upon something ordinary and suddenly make it seem strange and beautiful?
I was just pondering the name 'Margaret', which has quite dowdy connotations these days. It's a name I associate with older and especially conservative women – fuck you Margaret Thatcher
a younger person with the name is more likely to go by a diminutive or derivation of it, such as Meg, Maggie, Molly, Peggy, Daisy, Maisie or Margot
Even the Latin name Margarita and the French name Marguerite seem more popular than the English derivative
The name means 'pearl' and came into the Romance languages from Greek 'margaritari' – μαργαριτάρι – which was a Persian loanword and ultimately came from the Sogdian language
Sogdian is a Middle Iranian language from the region whose capital is Samarqand – the famous Silk Road trading city that was also the hub of the Timurid Renaissance of Islamic scholarship. It was a Central Asian lingua franca of governance, trade and learning
Importantly, Sogdia is a landlocked region. So to me it seems they would have got the word for 'pearl' from someone else who traded pearls to them
But even despite all this #etymology, the actual English name Margaret looks cool and exotic to me now in an underrated way
like, the ending -aret with the single t really HITS for me
I wonder if these words that came into English with one t but into the Romance languages with two ts reflect the English custom of just lopping off a Latin suffix
I know I've seen other English words that do that, but of course none of them come to mind right now
Npars01, Fresh water pearls used to be commonplace.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pearl/time.html
The Central Asian Silk Road used to be water-rich.
https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/silkroad-interactive-map
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road
https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter1/emergence-of-mechanized-transportation-systems/silk-road-arab-sea-routes-12th-century/
ecoscore, Has anyone informed the Liberal Party that they are the complete antithesis of the word liberal
#politas #etymology #auspol
mapologies, "Computador" or "computadora" (informally "compu") is the Spanish equivalent of the English word "computer." It originated from the Latin "computator." Another term used in Spanish, specifically in Spain, borrowed from French "ordinateur" (from Latin "ordinātor"), is "ordenador."
AbsluteBeginner, Spanish @mapologies I always liked so much the COMPUTADORA variant, although in Spain we call it ORDENADOR. But at the very beginning I think that COMPUTADORA was the chosen term in all the Spanish-speaking area.
mcha, In #Polish the word for Germany is Niemcy which is etymologically opposite to #Slavic. ‘[Slavic] … originally denoted "people who speak (the same language)", i.e. people who understand each other, in contrast to the Slavic word denoting "foreign people", namely němci, meaning "mumbling, murmuring people" (from Slavic *němъ "mumbling, mute").’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs_(ethnonym) #german #etymology #linguistics #language
UnconventionalEmma, Oh, this is lovely. A study on the #etymology of lake names.
It starts with a word I had to look up - limnology - and then moved onto the fact that “Troll” can be found in 193 Swedish lake names according to the Swedish lake registry, with 72 Trolltjärn (Troll Tarn), and 33 Trollsjön (Troll Lake).
https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lob.10613
wendypalmer, My partner decided “loaf” was a weird word so I looked up its etymology and now we know “lord” comes from “loaf-ward” ie guardian of the bread.
mike, @wendypalmer I shall henceforth be known as Mike, loaf ward of New Westminster.
vagrantc, I've been pondering why the word "technology" which, can be roughly literally translated as the study or knowledge of (ology) technique (technos?) ...
But in common everyday usage, the word "technology" often refers to the applied uses and the results of those applied uses, and even the objects and virtual objects themselves...
Have other "ology" words drifted meaning in similar ways?
AllEndlessKnot, The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is #wotd #StPatricksDay #StPatricksDay2024 #leprechaun #lungs
AllEndlessKnot, Happy #InternationalWomansDay! While it may seem like a slightly odd way to mark this day, our video about “Chauvinism” explores some of the origins of misogyny and the early roots of feminism. https://youtu.be/iLuJ-BUSNcI
#InternationalWomansDay #Etymology #Video #WordNerd #Linguistics #Words #HistoricalLinguistics
AllEndlessKnot, To celebrate #WorldBartenderDay, why not watch one of our earliest videos, about the origins of cocktails and the first celebrity bartender, Jerry Thomas. http://youtu.be/q9N0MYtcpr4
#Etymology #Video #WordNerd #Linguistics #Language #Words #HistoricalLinguistics #LingComm #Cocktail #Bartender
llewelly, I've been reading that joke about etymology and entomology for at least 10 years, but I don't know anything about its history, and that bugs me in ways that I can't put into words.
john, @llewelly I’m sure there's got to something in the rules around here about this sort of thing.
AllEndlessKnot, Happy #ValentinesDay! It’s time for us to ruin the mood, as we do every year, by posting our video about the word “Cuckold”, and how it connects to Valentine’s Day (via Chaucer) https://youtu.be/uk6gsB0Iijc
#Etymology #Video #WordNerd #Linguistics #Language #Words #HistoricalLinguistics #LingComm #Cuckold #Chaucer