“Gilbert employed the Latin electricus to describe the observation that when you rub amber against some substances like wool or a cat’s fur, it sticks to the amber. We now that this clinging—and the zaps that appear between the amber and the substance rubbed against it—is due to static, but at the time, Gilbert supposed amber to be magnetic.”
“Gilbert employed the Latin electricus to describe the observation that when you rub amber against some substances like wool or a cat’s fur, it sticks to the amber. We now that this clinging—and the zaps that appear between the amber and the substance rubbed against it—is due to static, but at the time, Gilbert supposed amber to be magnetic.”
From rags to riches, or the multifaceted progress of lady
“In 1992, Rainer Schulze, a German researcher, examined the entry lady in the OED and presented the word’s story in nineteen steps, which I’ll reproduce below in an abridged form (all my examples will also be borrowed from his paper). The main steps are as follows: someone who kneads bread; the female head of the household (a mistress in relation to servants or slaves); Virgin Mary (a most important leap), and Lady as the designation of the Virgin (Our Lady, finds its counterparts in Latin Domina Nostra, French Notre Dame, and elsewhere); a woman who rules over subjects; a woman of superior position in society; a woman who is the object of chivalrous devotion; a woman, loosely defined but of usually not very elevated standard of social position.”
"One wonders: Are we dealing with a set of relatively late independent creations or a set of old (even ancient) roots, whose reflexes sound like baby words but are still regular nouns and verbs? Opinions on this score are divided (opinions in etymology are always divided), especially because borrowing (take note!) is always a possibility."
"The word “nostalgia” first described homesickness and likely PTSD symptoms experienced by Swiss soldiers and mercenaries who fought abroad in the 1700s."
"The word “nostalgia” first described homesickness and likely PTSD symptoms experienced by Swiss soldiers and mercenaries who fought abroad in the 1700s."
"Loiter, a fourteenth-century verb, sounds quite unlike the monosyllables mentioned above. It appeared in Middle English in the form lotere and then in a 1440 English-Latin dictionary as loytre. Still later, the spelling leutere ~ leutre turned up. It is not improbable that “loiterers” (vagabonds) from the Low Countries were the originators of the verb (another case of self-characterization?)."
"Throughout his life, Skeat supported the OED by his reviews (today it seems incredible that once not everybody praised Murray’s work) and kept chastising his countrymen for their ignorance and stupidity when it came to philology. He never stopped complaining that people used to offer silly hypotheses of word origins, instead of consulting the greatest authority there was."
I'm no expert at maths in much the same way ostriches are not experts in flying , but something still seems a bit suss about this, from "Word Perfect: Etymological Entertainment For Every Day of the Year" by Susie Dent. Unless, of course, my copy "had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a hundred years in the future" 😀 #Nonfiction#etymology#language#AmReading#ebooks#Kobo@bookstodon
#RandomThoughts
It seems arbitrary and chaotic to me that some abbreviations are just truncations and some are derived from seemingly random letter removals. Why is there no single universal rule or algorithm for abbreviation construction? 🤔
I was stupidly thrilled while reading my e-newsletter from @elcultural to find the word "letraheridos" (more or less "people hurt by letters") to describe what English might call #bibliophiles or #literature lovers—and now I'm wondering if the origins of this newer term have anything to do with #Auden declaring #Yeats was hurt into #poetry ... Wherever it came from, I'm declaring it the best word I've heard in ages.
4.75/5 @thestorygraph for "The Oxford Dictionary of Etymology" Durkin's passion for his subject shines through and lifts the quality of his writing, from beginning
"I would like to thank the dedicatees of this book ("my parents") for tolerating a child’s at times rather obsessive interest in very old documents and even older words."
to end
"like all the best intellectual pursuits, once the bug is caught, it is likely to remain with one for life." #AmReading#ebooks#etymology@bookstodon
TFW a paragraph about #English names in a book on etymology puts a snippet of #German poetry you last read 30+ years ago into your head: "Es war einmal ein lattenzaun mit zwischenraum, hindurchzuschaun" (Bonus points for any who know why the poem always reminds me of Emo Philips😀) #AmReading#etymology#nonfiction#poetry#Deutsch#ebooks#Kobo@bookstodon
"Following" up a bit of paper book reading with some real fun - a whole page on the origin of "procession" from "Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English" #AmReading#ebooks#Linguistics#etymology@bookstodon
Y'all as a second-person plural pronoun is not just “the quintessential Southern pronoun.” A linguist has found uses going back to 1631 in England, hundreds of years before the more recent usages cited by the Oxford English Dictionary.
And its inclusiveness is also gaining new respect, you hear?