by Roseanna White | May 4, 2020 | Word of the Week
Originally posted on 8/13/12
Once upon a time, I was looking up “war zone,” and in so doing came across some interesting tidbits on zone. =)
The noun dates to the late fourteenth century, coming directly from the Latin zona, which means “a geographical belt, celestial zone.” The Latin, in turn, comes from the Greek zone,
which was the word for “belt.” Originally this was used solely to talk
of the five great divisions on the surface of the earth–the torrid,
temperate, and frigid areas, separated by the tropics of Cancer and
Capricorn and the Arctic and Antarctic circles.
It wasn’t until 1822 that zone was applied to any set region–so I
could be pretty sure “war zone” wasn’t around yet in 1814, LOL. It was applied to sports in 1927.
Then we have the verb sense coming into play. “Zoning” land for a purpose dates from 1912.
Not to be confused with the oh-so-modern sense of “zone out.” This verb is from the 1980s, a back-formation of the adjective “zoned” that’s related to drug use, taken from the word ozone. I guess it implies that someone’s really high, which I’d never paused to consider.
That use is from the 1960s. (Surprise, surprise, LOL.)
So there you go. Some really ancient uses, and some incredibly modern ones. =)
by Roseanna White | Apr 27, 2020 | Word of the Week
This is a very appropriate revisit from 2012, I thought since we’re only a few days away from May 1. As in, May Day. Ha…ha…ha…😉
Anyway!
Mayday, according to “The Wireless Age” from June 1923, is an aviator distress call. It was agreed that just saying the letters SOS
wouldn’t do–that was the agreed upon message for telegraph, but it
didn’t translate so well to spoken words. The powers that be also
decided a simple “Help!” wouldn’t do. So they chose “May Day,” thinking
it particularly fitting because it sounds so similar to the French m’aidez (help me).
It has since translated to any radio communication of help, be it in airplanes or boats or whatever.
by Roseanna White | Apr 20, 2020 | Word of the Week
Originally posted August 27, 2012
Though a revisit, this remains one of my favorite word discoveries!
I always thought of wow as a modern word. So when I looked it up, I was shocked to see that it’s from 1510!
Wow is a Scottish interjection, one of those that arise from a
natural sound we make when surprised by something. Much like whoa, ow,
ouch, huh, and the like.
It became a verb in more modern days, though–we only started wowing people in the 1920s, originating in America. 😉
But in my defense, it’s a word that waxed and waned in popularity. It
apparently took on new life in the early 1900s after being not so in use
prior, and then had another surge in the 1960s. Which has carried
through to now.
And of course, had led to one of my son’s favorite sayings when he was about 4:
Wowwy-zowwy-coppa-bowwy! (Or however one would spell that…) (Sadly, eight years later he doesn’t say it anymore, though I still do on occasion, LOL.)
by Roseanna White | Apr 13, 2020 | Word of the Week
Holidays mean food. (So do regular days, LOL.) And this year, with trying to limit our trips to the store, I’m making more of an effort than usual to make sure all leftovers get eaten. Which led me to pull everything out of the fridge and declare dinner a smorgasbord of leftovers (when else do you get to have pizza with a side of mashed potatoes? This is awesome.). Which, of course, led my daughter to ask, “What does smorgasbord even mean? What a weird word.”
I replied, “I think it’s Scandinavian. Beyond that…I don’t know.”
Cue that oh-so-familiar declaration of, “Word of the Week!” (This is shouted in our house regularly, LOL.)
And so, here we go–and it’s a funny one! Smorgasbord is, in fact, Swedish. Literally meaning (are you ready?) “butter-goose table.” Yep. Butter-goose table. Though before you start scratching your head too much, let’s note that though that is its literal meaning, in Sweden it actually has become the term used for a slice of bread and butter. Namely, not a full meal, but a light dish. When you add the bord to the end, it means a table set out with such dishes. This is from around 1893 (when it joined English, anyway). But by 1948, the word was used to mean any medley.
Have you had any smorgasbords in your house lately?
by Roseanna White | Apr 6, 2020 | Word of the Week
I’ve looked at the word fast before, but I was specifically focusing on the adjective/adverb form (and why we don’t add -ly to it anymore). Today I wanted to take a look at the verb/noun form. Seems appropriate as we enter Holy Week, the end of the period of Lenton fasting, which contains one of the two days traditionally requiring a fast (Good Friday). 😁
As a quick reminder, the adj/adv form originally meant “firmly fixed.” This is preserved today in steadfast. A reminder I have to make, because the noun/verb meaning is from the same root and indeed carries much the same meaning.
From the Old English faesten, the word originally meant “to make firm; establish, confirm, pledge.” So let’s trace that a bit, shall we? “Make firm” easily moved into “to have firm control of oneself” and “confirming” or “pledging” similarly are necessary in order to abstain from something for religious reasons. So to fast was to hold oneself in observance of something…especially by abstaining from something…especially food.
It definitely originated as a ritual tied to faith, but soon became the word used for any abstinence, whether it was for religious reasons or not. Hence, of course,
breakfast being the first meal of the day, when we break the fast of the night.
by Roseanna White | Mar 30, 2020 | Word of the Week
I found this one on another trending list at Etymonline.com — and found it quite interesting! Did you know that curfew is literally “cover fire”? It’s from the Old French cuevrefeu — cuevre being “cover” and feu, of course, being “fire.” Why?
Well, it began in the Middle Ages, when a bell would ring at 8 or 9 p.m., signaling everyone to douse their fires…so that no one would fall asleep, leave the fires unattended, and so burn the whole village down. It came into English sometime in the 1300s as “a signal bell rung at a set time.”
This word took its time in evolving into “a period of restricted movement,” not taking on that meaning until the 1800s. But there we have it. When you give your kids a curfew, you’re really telling them to put out their fire and go to sleep. 😉
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.