Originally posted 8/20/12
 

Mean is one of those words that I knew well would have been around forever, but I looked it up to see about some of the particular uses. And as usual, found a few surprises. =)

As a verb, mean has meant “intend, have in mind” even back in the days of Old English. No surprise there. It shares a root with similar
words in Dutch and German and various other languages, perhaps from men,
which means “think.” But the unexpected part–the question “Know what I
mean?” is only from 1834! Of course, that’s as a conversational question, a saying. I daresay the words were uttered as a particular question before that. Know what I mean? 😉

As an adjective, it began life as “low-quality.” Like “a mean hovel”
that the poor dude lived in. But it also carried a meaning, rather
related, actually, of “shared by all, common, public.” And presumably, if something were shared by all, it wasn’t really high in quality, eh? So
“inferior, second-rate” was also a natural progression for the word and came about in the 14th century.

I knew this definition would be the oldest but, when I looked it up, was more interested in when the most common meaning if mean
(meaning of mean–ha . . . ha . . . ha…) came into play. It acquired the “stingy, nasty” implication in the 1660s, and was then pretty strong. We Americans had to come along to give it a softer side
of “disobliging, pettily offensive,” so that didn’t come about until
1839–again, there’s the surprise!

And
an interesting note on it too. The inverted sense of “remarkably good,”
(think “wow, he plays a mean piano!”) is from 1900, most likely from a
simple dropping of a negative, like “he is no mean piano player,” (mean here being either “inferior” or its other meaning of “average.”)

Have no mean Monday, all! 😉

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. =)

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.

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?

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.