Word of the Week – Ballet and Ball

by Roseanna White | Mar 25, 2019 | Word of the Week

My daughter has been taking ballet since she was five, and it’s safe to say she is a very enthusiastic fan of the art. 😉  A few weeks ago she asked me to look up where the word comes from, so of course, I obliged.

Ballet comes to English from (shocker) French. Though interestingly, the original French word is actually the feminine ballette. It’s been in English since the 1660s, meaning “a theatrical, costumed dance telling a story.” The French word is, in turn, from the Italian balletto, which is a diminutive of ballo, meaning “to dance.” The Italian, of course, come from Latin (ballare) and the Latin in turn from the Greek ballezein, all of the same meaning.

What I don’t think I ever paused to realize is that this is also where ball, as in, “a large dance party,” comes from (duh, right?). Perhaps simply because we pronounce ballet and ball differently, my brain just hadn’t made that connection. But OF COURSE!

Word of the Week – Jumbo

by Roseanna White | Mar 18, 2019 | Word of the Week

My daughter informed of this one, courtesy of her history book. =)

So we all know jumbo as “very large.” Even excessively large. But did you know it came from an elephant’s name? I didn’t!

In the 1880s there was an elephant in the London zoo called Mumbo Jumbo (because they thought it sounded African). The name may have even been influenced by the West African word for “elephant.” In 1882, Jumbo was sold to P. T. Barnum, where he became one of the stars of the famous American circus.

This is when the word Jumbo began to be well known. And it only took 4 short years for it to be used as a general word for size, especially for products! It’s especially noteworthy considering Jumbo, who Barnum reports was the biggest elephant he’d ever seen, was tragically struck by a freight train and killed in 1885 while the circus was loading up to move. =(

Word of the Week – Stationary and Stationery

by Roseanna White | Mar 11, 2019 | Word of the Week

Okay, this one is really cool, guys! I’ve long known that stationary (meaning “not moving”) and stationery (meaning “writing materials”) were homophones and that the one with the a was the adjective and the one with the e had to do with writing letters.

But did you know they were related? I just learned this, and it’s a cool story!

So, in the 1700s, most people who were selling things in London would set up stalls in the streets. Many were only permitted to stay in one location for a short time before they’d have to move their stalls. But others had special licenses to stay in one spot indefinitely–to remain stationary. Because they were stationary, they came to be called stationers.

Many of these stationary merchants sold writing goods outside the law offices. And so, because the writing supplies came from stationers, the lawyers began calling it stationery.

Pretty fun, huh? The different spellings have been fixed since the early 1800s.

Word of the Week – “Integr-” words

by Roseanna White | Mar 4, 2019 | Word of the Week

This is another one that comes courtesy of my son’s vocabulary book. 😉

Let’s look for a moment at the Latin word integer, which means “whole, complete.” We see this root in quite a lot of English words.

First, the word integer itself, which means “a whole number.” 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.–no decimals, no fractions. (Margot from The Number of Love would be delighted to see me featuring this word, LOL.)

But we also have words like integrate–which has been in English since the 1630s with the meaning of “to make something whole, to bring together the parts of something.” Now, it’s worth noting that this is specific to pieces that are already meant to be combined. The meaning of “bringing together elements or parts to make something into a whole” is from 1802. This second meaning is the one where you take pieces that were not at first part of the same thing to make something new.

And then we also have integrity. Though it’s been around since 1400 with the sense of “purity, blamelessness,” it too comes from that idea of wholeness. Paul commands us in the epistles to “be complete.” This is the same idea. We are to be whole, complete, without hole or defect…which hence means we are pure, without spot, blameless. I really like that idea! That by having integrity, we are the complete picture of ourselves.

Word of the Week – Campaign

by Roseanna White | Feb 25, 2019 | Word of the Week

The word campaign has been in English since the 1600s, arriving in our tongue from Latin, by way of French. In its early days, campaign was reserved for military courses of action. Why?

Well, it’s actually from the Latin word campus, which means “an open field.” Soldiers on active duty were often out “in the field”–something we still say today. This, then, became extended to include the course of action the military would undergo in a particular area, especially because these actions were generally planned during the winters (when they were literally just camped in a field) before the action in the spring.

In the 1790s, campaign was extended to mean any planned course of action. And in 1809 it took on the political meaning we use so often today.

And also, an announcement! I’ll be doing a LIVE cover reveal tonight (Monday 25 February) at 7:00 p.m. Eastern in Roseanna White Live! You’ll be able to watch both on Facebook and on my website, live or on-demand.

Did you realize my debut novel, A Stray Drop of Blood, is turning 10 this year?! I can’t believe it’s been so long…and I wanted to celebrate by giving Stray Drop a new cover! (Classic edition will still be available in paperback too, as long as my stock holds out…which should be a while, LOL.) This new cover will be on the ebook, a new paperback with bonus content, AND a hardback with dust jacket!

PLUS (wow, I feel like a pitchman, LOL), because A Soft Breath of Wind‘s cover had been designed to coordinate with Stray Drop‘s, I redesigned that one as well and will be revealing it at the same time! It’s going to be super fun, y’all!!! Please drop by live so we can chat about it in real time! 😀

Word of the Week – Disaster

by Roseanna White | Feb 18, 2019 | Word of the Week

This is one of those that I probably could have figured out if I ever happened to pause and think about it…but which I’d never paused to think of until I saw it in my son’s vocabulary book. 😉

So, we’re probably all familiar with the root of disaster. Namely, aster, the Latin word for “star.” We see this root in many words. Asterisk, astronomy, astrology, etc.

And of course, dis- as a prefix means “against.” So disaster is literally “against the stars.” This will either make a light bulb go on over your head or make you scratch said head, LOL. It’s pretty clear when you remember that in ancient days, the stars were considered to be guiding forces–or if not guiding, they made things clear. A star heralded the births of important men, for instance (Christ being the ultimate example of this). In many cases, it wasn’t that people thought the stars dictated what happened so much as that they explained what happened.

Regardless, disaster would mean that the stars were against you–which meant trouble and bad things would happen to you.

Even though most of us today don’t believe that, it’s still so interesting to realize that our vocabulary reflects those ancient beliefs!