We’ve all been there. We’ve had a bad day, something went wrong, someone hurt our feelings, or maybe we’re just not feeling well physically–times when the best word we can find to describe our state is upset. We all know what we mean–that nothing’s quite right, that things are unsettled, that the order has been overturned.

But have you ever paused to wonder at the word itself? It seems, at first glance, to be fairly straightforward…but when you look up the history, you’re in for a surprise!

Upset has been in the English language since the mid-1400s…but not as we know it. Rather, it meant “to set up, to fix.” Wait–what? That’s the opposite of what it means now! But until the early 1800s, that was the sole use of the word, and the one used for our current meaning was in fact overset, which is now obsolete.

It wasn’t until 1803 that the modern use began to appear, with the meaning of “overturned, capsized”–so a boat would be upset. In 1805, the metaphorical sense of mental discomposure came along. And it wasn’t until the 1830s that it began to be used for an unsettled stomach.

The day, my husband and I were walking and talking about a potential building project, and he said something about all the work that needs to go into a foundation, water lines, electric, etc–that “groundwork accounts for half the work.” He then mused as to whether literal groundwork was where the metaphorical groundwork came from.

Short answer: Yep! Of course!

Long answer: Since the mid-14oos, groundwork has been used to refer to the foundation of a building–you know, the part directly on or even under the ground. What surprised me was that by 1550, the symbolic or metaphorical use had come into being and was also used of immaterial things. So people have been laying the groundwork for other plans and projects and ideas for quite a long time!

Have you ever been involved in a new-construction building project? Did the cost and amount of planning for the groundwork take you by surprise?

Last week we were chatting about the style of certain classmates from college, and a friend said, “I bet he wears seersucker suits, doesn’t he?” In fact, he does. 😉 But it made me curious about the word.

We’ve likely all seen that iconic striped fabric…but did you know that the word seersucker actually means “milk and sugar”?

Say what? Yep. Seersucker, a fabric that came to the Western world in 1722, is taken directly from the Hindi sirsakar, which is directly from the Persian words for “milk” (shir) and “sugar” (shakar), referencing the alternately smooth and puckered surface of the striped cloth.

So…do you own any seersucker clothing? I have one pair of pants in the classic white/blue stripe–I like them, but they were actually a freebie from a bundle I purchased on Poshmark, not something I picked out myself, LOL.

If you’ve studied plot structure at all, you may have come across the word denouement. It’s that wrapping-up part of a story that happens after the climax, sometimes called the resolution.

We’ve been using this word in English since the 1750s, borrowed directly (of course) from the French. The French nouer, which means “to tie,” in turn comes directly from the Latin nodus, “a knot.” Add on that negative de- prefix, and we get a literal “to untie.” Which is to say, the mysteries or complications have all been unknotted, untied, laid out in a nice neat order. Makes sense, right?

What might not make sense, then, is why call the same things “tying things up” or object when too much is put in a “nice, neat bow.” Hmm…tying…untying… Well, as long as it’s not in knots!