Word of the Week – Fizzle

Word of the Week – Fizzle

by | Apr 22, 2024 | Word of the Week

Fizzle. You’ve used the word, I’m sure. I have. Heard it countless times. And we all know what it means.

But I bet you have no idea where it comes from–I sure didn’t!

Fizzle, as it happens, has the same Middle English origins as feisty, from the now-obsolete use of fist that meant…gas. You may or may not recall my post years ago on feisty, and how I will never ever use it for a historical heroine, knowing that it literally meant “stinking and gassy” and was used for dogs, LOL. Turns out, fizzle is indeed related.

From the 1500s all the way up into the 1800s, fizzle meant–brace for it–“to pass gas without a sound.”

Hoo, boy. This is a little boy’s dream word, isn’t it? LOL.

In the mid-1800s, scientists began to use it to describe the noise that air or gas makes when forced from a small aperture…which, as we all know from playing with balloons, bears a certain resemblance to a bodily noise. It was used particularly for the stopping of that sound…you know, when it fizzled out. From there, especially among American college students, it began to take on its metaphorical meaning of “to come to a sudden failure or stop after a good start.” Said college students would use it when their fellows didn’t answer a professor’s questions correctly.

Another word I’m going to have to be mindful of now in my historicals, LOL.

Word Nerds Unite!

Read More Word of the Week Posts

Word Nerds Merch!

Word of the Week – Artificial

Word of the Week – Artificial

by | Apr 15, 2024 | Word of the Week

Have you ever paused to really look at the word artificial? If you had, you’d notice those first three letters: art.

And if you look at those first three letters and think about what art is, then you’ll likely go, “Well, huh.” It makes sense, right? Art is something mankind creates, something we make. So then, it should be no surprise that artificial, taken (via Old French) from the Latin artificialis, has its roots in craftsmanship, things made by human hands, skilled work.

Artificial entered the English language way back in the 1300s, and it still carried that meaning, but with a particular slant: “things that aren’t natural.” One of the first recorded uses of the word is artificial day–the time between sunrise and sunset, which is opposed to the natural day of 24-hours. Why? Because that’s the part of the 24-hours that man has contrived to be “day,” the part we use for our labor (generally speaking, and certainly back in the day before electricity!). By the 1400s, it had remembered a bit more of its Latin roots and had been extended to “things made my man’s labor,” rather than just “not natural.” Another hundred years, and it was applied to anything man made with the purpose of replacing something natural–hair, teeth, light, etc.

Which, of course, led to “not genuine, fictitious” as a meaning from about 1640 onward.

Artificial insemination dates from 1894 (?? REALLY ??). And of course today’s hot topic, artificial intelligence, was coined in the 1950s for “intelligent machines.”

Word Nerds Unite!

Read More Word of the Week Posts

Word Nerds Merch!

Word of the Week – Bully

Word of the Week – Bully

by | Apr 8, 2024 | Word of the Week

Bully is a word we all know, right? And it’s certainly not something we’d ever mean as a compliment. Which is why I was utterly confounded when I saw that the original meaning of bully was, in fact…sweetheart.

Say what?

Yep.

The word dates in English back to the 1530s, and it could be used for either gender. Etymologists aren’t entirely certain where it originated, but their best guess is that it came from the Dutch boel, which could mean either “romantic love interest” or “brother.” Boel is probably a dimunitive of broeder.

So what happened??

Well, the word followed a course that is strangely not unusual for words that are used as endearments, thanks to our propensity for mockery and sarcasm (way to go, humans). In the 1600s, bully could be used to mean “a fine fellow.” But you know, it just doesn’t take long for such a term to be applied with something less than sincerity. By the 1680s, it had gone through the meaning of “blusterer” and had begun to mean “harasser of the weak.” The best guess as to how this happened is that chaps would defend their sweethearts…even when others didn’t think those sweethearts were worthy of defense. So what you’d call your sweetheart, you begin to be called, and then are called it mockery, and then the mocking word gets applied to those who do the mocking.

A bit of the original happy connotation is still preserved in the adjective form that means “worthy, jolly, admirable,” which enjoyed a bit of a resurgance in populartiy in the 1800s. The expression “Bully for you!” as “Bravo!” is from 1864.

Word Nerds Unite!

Read More Word of the Week Posts

Word Nerds Merch!

Word of the Week – Easter

Word of the Week – Easter

by | Apr 1, 2024 | Word of the Week

Every couple years, I love to revisit the history of words like Easter…because yes, I’ve featured it twice before, but maybe you’re new here! Or maybe you don’t remember the history–I know I forget plenty of the words I’ve covered before! LOL

This one, however, has stuck with me…because its discovery was pretty important in our family. See, we’d just looked up the history of St. Nicholas to try to determine if Santa Claus ought to remain part of our family tradition…and what the kids and I learned was that St. Nick’s is a story of miracles, generosity, and deep faith. Something to emulate, for sure!

So a few months later, my daughter decided to write an essay for our homeschool on Easter. I had a suspicion she wasn’t going to like what she found, already knowing as I did that the English name for the holiday came from a pagan goddess, but I said, “Sure, have at it.” So she did. And she was genuinely upset at what she found. No stories of faith-filled saints here, that’s for sure!

First, let’s note that in most European languages, the word for this holiday in which we celebrate the resurrection of Christ is a variation of the Hebrew pasche, the word for Passover, which of course is the Jewish holiday that was going on when Jesus was crucified and then rose from the dead. And this has been kept even in English in some faith traditions that will talk about the Paschal Lamb, light the Paschal candle, and so on.

But when Anglo-Saxons were introduced to Christianity, they decided to call this important Christian feast by the same name they already used for the vernal equinox, since they historically coincide. Which meant was called Easter, after Eastre, the goddess of spring, whose feast day was celebrated then. Eastre wasn’t just the goddess of spring though–she was a magician, most remembered for turning a chicken into a rabbit…that still laid eggs. Sound familiar? This is, in fact, where the Easter Bunny tradition comes from.

Now, eggs do have a link back to Passover traditions too, don’t get me wrong. The egg itself has plenty of faith-filled symbolism, and even searching for items during the Paschal celebration has long roots in Judeo-Christianity (during seder meals, children hunt for the “missing” piece of bread that the adults have hidden for them, and a prize goes to whoever finds it).

Even so, you can’t escape that many of our modern English-speaking traditions have nothing to do with the Christian celebration of the day and everything to do with its ancient pagan roots.

The term “Easter Eggs” dates to 1824, and the modern tradition of the Easter Bunny is from 1909, both of which were informed by those early stories of the goddess Eastre. Easter Island is so named because it was discovered on Easter Monday.

Word Nerds Unite!

Read More Word of the Week Posts

Word Nerds Merch!

Word of the Week – Ruminate

Word of the Week – Ruminate

by | Mar 25, 2024 | Word of the Week

Today’s word is going to be short and sweet, but interesting nevertheless!

This one is totally for my husband, who asked a few weeks ago if ruminate was related to cows. Cue me going, “Uh…” and reaching for my phone.

Turns out that, yes. Yes, it is. Ruminate has been around since the 1530s, meaning “to turn over in the mind.” But it’s straight from the Latin word rumen, which means…gullet. And hence ruminare, which means “to chew the cud,” like a cow.

So when you’re ruminating on something, you’re chewing the cud. In your brain.

You’re welcome. 😉

Word Nerds Unite!

Read More Word of the Week Posts

Word Nerds Merch!

Word of the Week – Spring

Word of the Week – Spring

by | Mar 18, 2024 | Word of the Week

Just a few more days until we in the Northern Hemisphere celebrate the arrival of spring! And yes, I say “celebrate,” because spring has always been my favorite season. =) And while I’ve done highlights on a lot of the words for the seasons over the years, I didn’t have one dedicated just to spring, so I figured it was time to remedy that!

I daresay the reason I never featured it before was because its use for the seasonal name is fairly obvious. It’s when new life springs forth.

But there are still some interesting and surprising facets to the word!

First of all, though our Gregorian calendars don’t admit of it, spring is traditionally recognized in Western society as the first season of the year–this is glaringly clear in the Bible, where God tells the Israelites as He’s leading them from Egypt that the month containing Passover is to be their first month. And of course, we know that Passover and the arrival of spring are close together. Before “spring” was used for the season by Old English speakers they in fact called the whole season lencten after Lent.

But despite our calendars now beginning in the middle of winter, socieities still recognize spring as first. The first new season, and the beginning of the visible cycle of life in nature. In fact, the word they use in French is printemps, which literally means “first time” or “first season.” There was a time in the 15th century when English speakers would also call it “prime-temps” after the French, but spring predates it by centuries.

Way back in the 1300s, it was called “springing time,” for when the plants sprang forth. The phrase “the spring of the leaf” was in popular use in the 1500s. But did you know that “spring of…” was used for other natural phenomena too? “Spring of dai” was sunrise; “spring of mone” was moonrise.

By the early 1700s, spring could be used as an adjective to describe things pertaining to the season. Such as… spring fever as “a surge of romantic feelings” dates from 1843 (it was originally used for an actual illness–ew); spring chicken as a “young chicken 11-14 weeks old,” the age they’d be in the spring, is from 1780. The same was used for young people by 1906. Spring training was used of military musters before it was applied to baseball in 1889. And my personal favorite (in terms of words–not action, LOL) is spring cleaning–used in English by 1843, but hilarious because the Ancient Persian word for their first month (our March-April) of the year was called Adukanaiša, which literaly meant “irrigation canal cleaning month.” How’s that for a whimsical name?

Word Nerds Unite!

Read More Word of the Week Posts

Word Nerds Merch!

Cart
Checkout - $0.00
  • 0
  • 1