Word of the Week – Apron

Word of the Week – Apron

by | Feb 20, 2023 | Word of the Week

Did you know that “an apron” used to be “a napron” … until eventually people got confused about the ellision and changed the spelling to match? Even funnier is that this has happened quite a lot in English (and other romance languages that have articles with n, like French, Italian, etc) with words originally beginning with n (see orange).

Faulty separation of the word from its article aside, the word apron, meaning “a cloth to cover one’s front to keep one’s clothes clean” is from the mid 1400s, from the French naperon, meaning “small tablecloth.” (Yeeeepppp. We just tie a tablecloth over us, like in a cartoon. No fooling.) Naperon, in turn, is a diminutive of nappa, meaning “cloth,” which came from the Latin mappa. Apparently those Old French speakers had a tendency of changing Ms to Ns.

By the 1700s, it was extended to other objects that looked or acted like an apron, and it has been used to refer to the business of a housewife since the 1610s!

Word of the Week – Orange

Word of the Week – Orange

by | Feb 13, 2023 | Word of the Week

Did you know that orange, meaning the color, wasn’t used until the 1500, while orange, for the fruit, dates to the 1300s? And that’s just in English!

The fruit is truly ancient, and our word traces its roots ultimately back to the Sanskrit naranga, by way Persian, Arabic, Italian, Medieval Latin, and French. Quite a journey! The word didn’t change much in its pronunciation as it traveled the globe, except that the initial n got confused with its articles at some point and it became an orange instead of a norange (much like several other words!).

The fascinating bit is that the color had no definite name in English for so long! It was just called “reddish-yellow” or occasionally “saffron” or “citrine.” Eventually people started referring to the shade as “the color of a ripe orange.”

It’s believed that the tree originated in India, imported to Europe, and from there, Columbus brought it with him to the new world, planting its seeds in the Caribbean on his second trip. Ponce de Leon is responsible for bringing them to Florida in 1513, and Hawaii saw its first oranges in 1792.

Word of the Week – Oxymoron

Word of the Week – Oxymoron

by | Feb 6, 2023 | Word of the Week

Did you know that the word oxymoron is itself an oxymoron?

The word means “a figure conjoining words or terms apparently contradictory so as to give point to the statement or expression,” such as “a little big”, “pretty ugly,” “deafening silence,” and so on. As a writer, I love a good oxymoron–fresh ones can add an unexpected twist to the narrative and hence paint the picture with color.

But we may not all realize that the word, in Latin, is oxy, “sharp” + moron, “stupid.” Literally “smart/stupid.” Funny, huh?

Oxymoron appeared in English around 1650 with that meaning and hasn’t changed over time. Still fun to say, fun to use, and fun to realize is an example of itself. 😉

Word of the Week – Colonel

Word of the Week – Colonel

by | Jan 30, 2023 | Word of the Week

I will never forget writing the Culper Ring Series, in which I had a prominent character named Fairchild, and growling incessantly over trying to remember how to spell his rank: lieutenant colonel. My critique partner and I joked about it and started typing it (in chat only, not in the manuscript!) as lootenant kernel instead. (Makes you want popcorn, doesn’t it?)

And yet I’d never actually paused to ask WHY we have such strange spelling/pronunciation of colonel. I’d just chalked it up to military weirdness, I guess, and left it at that.

The actual history, though, is quite interesting.

The word began seeing use in English in the 1540s, but it was taken from the French variation, which is coronel. The Italian spelling, however, is colonnella. They all come from the Latin columna, which of course means “a column or pillar.” A colonel/coronel, then, is someone in charge of a column or regiment.

By the late 1500s, English military folk decided they preferred the Italian spelling–maybe it was more fashionable to imitate the Italians than the French at that time in history? England and France had a rather, er, tense history, after all… Regardless, we began spelling it colonel instead of coronel. Until around 1650, either pronunciation–the “l” or the “r” were deemed acceptable. But then the earlier French pronunciation won out…even though the Italian spelling became standard.

So there we have it. An Italian spelling with a French pronunciation for a Latin root, all of which share a meaning, just to confuse poor school children and writers for the rest of time. 😉

Word of the Week – Jargon

Word of the Week – Jargon

by | Jan 23, 2023 | Word of the Week

Jargon. We all know what it is–“phraseology specific to a sect or profession.” And it’s something that, as a novelist, is both intimidating and useful. I know that if I want my thieves, spies, military personnel, seamstresses, innkeepers, Southerners, Englishmen, pirates, botanists, or vicars to be convincing (wow, I write about a lot of different people!), then I need to capture a bit of the jargon peculiar to them…but not so much that it makes the reader stumble. I have to use it to add flavor without overwhelming.

But…where does jargon even come from?

Interestingly, it’s taken directly from the French jargon, which means “chattering, specifically of birds.” ?!?! Isn’t that fun! By the time it migrated to English from French, it had also taken on the meaning of “idle talk” or “thieves’ Latin” in the French, so when it came to English, it carried that secondary sense with it too. It traces its roots ultimately back to the Latin garrire, which also means “to chatter.” Early synonyms of jargon were “gibberish, jabbering, unintelligible talk.”

By the 1650s, that “unintelligible talk” had begun to be applied to people who used words specific to their fields, which no one outside the fields could understand. Eventually, that became the primary meaning of jargon, while its synonyms kept the broader meanings.

As a writer, we have plenty of our own jargon–how about you in your field? What are some words you use every day that earn blank stares from outsiders (or as we writers call the rest of the world, “normals”)?

Word of the Week – Panic

Word of the Week – Panic

by | Jan 16, 2023 | Word of the Week

Since last week I examined the Greek-mythology-origins of the word clue, I thought I’d stick to the theme and do another word from Greek mythology today. This one I’ve known for many years, so I always just assumed everyone else knew it too…but of course, not everyone has studied the Greeks as much as I have, so let’s take a look!

Panic. We all know the meaning…and the feeling. It’s that sudden fright or terror. That feeling of pulse-pounding dread. Looking at the definition, however, taught me something–it’s specifically fright or fear or dread of the unknown or without a clear cause. So, losing it when your airplane goes out of control isn’t panic–but that sudden fear when you’re walking along a perfectly safe road or hear a weird noise or go into your own dark basement where nothing bad has ever happened is.

What I also hadn’t realized was that the word originally meant “mass hysteria”–it was only used when that feeling hit multiple people at once.

Why? Where did it come from? From the Greek, meaning “pertaining to Pan.” Pan was a minor god, the god of woods and fields, of shepherds and flocks. He’s often pictured as a faun, with goat legs and a human torso (though not always)–and he always, ALWAYS has a set of pipes in hand. That is, in fact, a key part of the myth and the word panic.

Pan, you see, was attributed as the one responsible for those sudden, unexplained noises that caused herd or flocks (of animals or people) to panic, especially when out in the countryside in lonely places. He would play his pipes, and our mortal ears wouldn’t quite know what to make of the godly music, and … there you go. Panic, which is actually short for panikon deima, or “panic fright,” literally “the fright caused by Pan.”

We’ve been using the word in English as a modifying adjective (panic fright) from the 1600s, and then independently as a noun (“he was in a panic”) from about 1708. Interestingly, the verb didn’t come along until 1827, and it first appeared as “to afflict with panic.” Our meaning today of “lose one’s head, get into a panic” didn’t come along until 1902! Panic-stricken is from 1804 and panic-attack from 1970.

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