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Category Archives: Etymology
The Etymology of Sycophant
I’d been putting off writing this up, hoping to do all the necessary research first, but it’s a subject of discussion on Twitter (link), so here’s a brief outline: The traditional explanation of συκοφάντης, whose etymology implies that it means … Continue reading
Posted in Etymology
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Lost in the Etymological Jungle
Etymology is a tricky business. Here’s a simple proof for doubting students: English cognates are routinely formed from the present and participial stems of Latin verbs, often from both stems of the same verb. The present and participial stems of … Continue reading
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“I’ll put her to her pension”: A Mad World, My Masters I.ii.66
One of the more difficult passages in Middleton’s play is the soliloquy of Harebrain (aka Shortrod) as the “pure virgin” (actually a courtesan) fetches his wife (I.ii.62-69): This is the course I take; I’ll teach the married man A new … Continue reading
Posted in Curculio: English, English Literature, Etymology, POTIS
Tagged Middleton, Samuel Beckett, Schopenhaur
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Another Curculio
Two things I learned last week: That there is a Curculio Institute, headquartered in Mönchengladbach, Germany. The website (www.curci.de) helpfully defines it as “Center for Studies on western Palearctic Curculionoidea”, in other words, European weevils. That their newsletter, formerly Weevil … Continue reading
Posted in Etymology
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Curculio 5: Worst. Endearment. Ever.
Peter Davidson’s Poetry and Revolution: An Anthology of British and Irish Verse 1625-1660 (Oxford, 1998) includes a rather dull love-poem (number 36) by “T.C.”, most likely Thomas Cary, “Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles I” (516). The untitled poetic dialogue … Continue reading
Posted in Curculio: English, English Literature, Etymology, Orbilius
Tagged Peloponnese, Thomas Cary
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Curculio 3: “Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice . . .”
. . . and there are definitely worse possibilities. When one language adopts words from another, it sometimes happens that standard spelling changes create a new pair of homonyms, making two words that were quite different in the source language … Continue reading
Posted in Curculio: Misc, Etymology, Spanish
Tagged Castilian, Catalan, Eschatology, Portuguese, Robert Frost, Robertson Davies, Scatology
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“Government by Clowns”?
In a recent post at Chicago Boyz, David Foster asks “what the proper Greek would be for ‘government by clowns’”. There are several possibilities: A bomolochos was originally “one that waited about the altars, to beg or steal some of … Continue reading
Posted in Etymology, Orbilius
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Latin Puzzle
I think it was Patterico’s Pontifications where I recently ran across a weblog called Verum Serum. An interesting name, since it has three or four meanings in Latin: True Whey (taking Verum as an adjective and Serum as a noun). … Continue reading
Mazomanie
Ann Althouse ends a post on Wisconsin cuisine with a linguistic comment: . . . isn’t it cool that there’s a town called “Mazomanie.” It sounds sounds like a form of insanity. A cute and amazing mania. It does indeed … Continue reading
Posted in Etymology, General, Orbilius
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Linguistic Puzzle I
A local shopping center contains a ‘Center for Aesthetic Dentistry’. Wouldn’t that be the exact opposite of Anaesthetic Dentistry? Ouch!
Posted in Etymology, Orbilius
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Any Questions?
The Rat wants a feminine equivalent of ‘avuncular’. That’s easy: ‘materteral’. According to the Random House Word of the Day site, the word is listed only once in the Oxford English Dictionary, but is actually older (1823) than ‘avuncular’ (1831). … Continue reading
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Fooling the Gods?
Language Hat has an interesting post on the etymology of ‘theodolite’, which he treats as some kind of exotic or obsolete scientific instrument. I have used one on the job, though not in the last quarter-century. From 1978 to 1982 … Continue reading
