Word Facts

Spain's national motto is "plus ultra" ('further beyond'). This might seem like a statement about innovation or culture etc., but actually it is about geography...sort of. The original phrase was "Non terrae plus ultra" ("no land further beyond") as a reference to ships passing out of the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar. When it was discovered that there was land further beyond, i.e. the Americas, the phrase needed to change,  though it took 24 years to do so. It is thought to allude to the Reconquista, and more desired Christian expansion as well. The phrase was originally in French ("plus oultre") but was translated due to hostility with France. Get more of Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

In writing, punctuation helps to clarify breaks in speak, tone, and other things that might be lost without the natural pacing of speech, but that suggests that speech would have a sort of conversational comma, for instance. The most obvious way this happens is with literal pauses, but speech is much sloppier and more convoluted than writing tends to be, so other cues emerge. One of these is the use of certain words, such as 'right?' after a statement, which does a number of tasks, in between two utterances. One is to give the speaker a moment to think without interruption which a normal pause does not necessarily allow, but unlike 'um', which also serves that function, 'right?' draws focus to the first statement, by asking the listener to agree, before making a connection thematically to a following statement, thus lending more weight to the speech. This is a tactic frequently used in political interviews, for instance. For more on 'um', see here

The history of typography, and specifically what led to the modern English alphabet, is well known, but the history of each letter is often messier. For instance, many of the letters used by the ancient Phoenicians have a one-to-one correspondence with what developed into the letters we use today, but some only became distinct later, such as C and G, which were the same until the Romans adopted the system, similar to how I and J split after the Romans. More strangely perhaps, F shares an ancestor with Y and U, and by extension V and W. This was long enough ago however—far older than even the C-G split—that the sounds they represent have separated greatly. Scholars of Latin will know though that even then there was a great deal of overlap in the pronunciation of U and later V, and there was no difference then in spelling. Get more from Word Facts by visiting patreon.com/wordfacts

As a general sociolinguistic rule, when linguistic changes begin to occur, it is women who are leading the change. This was noticed by sociolinguists in the 1970's and 1980's, but evidence of this goes back much further. For instance, British English used to be rhotic—i.e. did not delete R from the ends of words etc.—and while the change was gradual, there is evidence to suggest that women were employing this much more than men. Starting in the 17th century, signs of non-rhoticity began to appear in writing, mostly in personal letters, and of those mostly from women. Rhoticity will be talked about in depth soon, (see more below) but this process can be said about many more changes, even those going on today in many cases. See more on rhoticity here: https://stonewordfacts.blogspot.com/2018/10/1412-rhoticitys-relationship-with.html

The word 'Hell' is an old word, related to 'color' [1], and sharing its name with a goddess and place in Norse mythology. Indeed, not only is there a connection to Germanic mythology, many Germanic languages used the older form that became 'Hell' and took on a different meaning. In Old English alone, the word was used in compounds like 'helle-rúne' meaning 'sorcery' which later developed into 'rune' like the writing system, and 'helle-wíte' meaning 'torment' (literally 'understanding Hell') is theorized to be the source of 'witch'. To read more about a possible Egyptian influence on 'Satan', you can check that out on the Word Facts Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/egyptian-on-wt-27908800 [1] https://stonewordfacts.blogspot.com/2017/01/777-hell-and-color-jan-23-2017.html

In the old days, automobiles were called 'horseless carriages', but there's some irony to that. The same root that horse has relations to many other words related to running or moving, including 'course', 'chariot', 'hurry', and of course, 'carriage' and 'car'. It also has plenty of cognates in other languages, like the French ' courir ' (to run), and the Welsh 'car', meaning 'wagon'. See more about horses, see yesterday's post .  Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

The word 'mare' dates back to Old English as a feminine word for 'horse'. Today, it means denotes a female horse but Old English had 3 grammatical genders, and 'mere' (mare) was merely the feminine equivalent for 'mearh' (horse). That word has since been usurped by 'horse', which also existed in Old English. Therefore, the Welsh word ' march' meaning 'stallion', but with no female equivalent, is one of its closest cognates, certainly outside of Germanic languages. See more on 'mare' in 'nightmare' . Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

While there are 'angelfish', in the scientific names of many other seedwellers, there are references to Hell. Indeed, it is known that the ichthyologist (studier of fish) Carl Leavitt Hubbs had a penchant for doing this, such as with the 'blind swamp eel', which bares the scientific name 'Ophisternon infernale', and was originally 'Pluto infernale', both words for Hell in Latin. Moreover, this is even more obvious in the genus for widemouth blindcats, a type of catfish, is 'Satan eurystomus'. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

English has more words than any other language, but no matter what metric you use for that, it could have more. A number of words (and other elements) have lost a great deal of productivity, and while this will often lead to total disappearances, if you look carefully you may find traces. For instance, ‘pittance’, which now only relates to money, or lack thereof, comes from ‘pity’, meaning “something that is pitiful”. If this were to be used outside of the context of money this would not make sense anymore however. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

The word ‘picnic’ has undergone a number of changes over the centuries, both in what is means, and how it appeared. In early printed works containing this word, it referred not to people eating outside, as it usually does today, but a restaurant meal to which people brought their own wine: a ‘BYOB’ of the 17 th century in some ways. It also was at one time synonymous with what we might call a ‘potluck’ today; many linguists believe that the ‘pic-‘ was in reference to picking things out. It only gained the connotations to the outdoors after the French revolution (then spelt ‘pique-nique), when the once-private public parks became open. The latter used to be believed to come from ‘nique’ meaning ‘unimportant (thing)’, but most now believe it came from ‘niche’ (‘to place’), and changed over time to rhyme with ‘pique’, evidence by the phrase “pique une niche” (“pick a place”). Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Some combining forms for countries make immediate sense, like ' Austro-' for Austria or 'Franco-' for France, and some are less obvious, like  'Hiberno-' for Ireland [2]. Portugal has another, 'Luso-', which is not immediately obvious; you may know it better from the phrase 'Lusophone (countries)' i.e. Portuguese-speaking. Like with 'Hiberno-', it is different now because it comes from Latin; the Roman province which included modern-day Portugal (as well as some of Spain) was called 'Lusitania'. This was also the namesake of one of the most famous sunken ships. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

The infinity symbol ∞ may appear to have been chosen as it loops, and therefore doesn't have an end, but this wouldn't be the full story. The first time it was published in math was 1655 by John Wallis, though it was used in Christian symbolism long before then. There are a number of theories as to why ∞ came to be, including that it looks like the Greek letter ω—the final letter in the alphabet—and that it looks like the Roman numeral for 1,000 (i.e. many), which is now thought of as an M, but in the medieval period was written curved almost like a sideways Theta θ, or even just CIƆ. In the former case, ω is used for certain sets in set-theory, and many cultures have used big numbers to signify 'countless' (like ' myriad ') so both theories are sensible really. See more about symbols of infinity here .

Certain letters, such as X,S,E, and B are horizontally symmetrical, but only in the right font. This may appear true of the Hebrew א, but it isn't, especially in serif-font. This would be a mostly pointless observation were it not the case that early math-books about set-theory included the Aleph—notating cardinal sets of infinity—upside-down for a long time. Some of this might be chalked up to a lack of knowledge from the printers, but also the monotype for א used in printing presses was often created upside down. See another post about א in set-theory posted today (and much more) while supporting Word Facts.

Windmills and watermills create power, and even peppermills create something, but treadmills generally draw power in order to run. In spite of the current discrepancy, they too started as a power-creating mill. In 19th century prisons, treadmills of the time looked more like elliptical machines, with steps on a wheel to be rotated, and these were very effective power-creation tools. Industrial Britain and to a lesser extent America relied on them to generate power with free labor. In those days, they really were mills as we might think of a mill now, both in shape and in function, but they were later outlawed as a cruel form of punishment, and were later remodelled for exercise in the mid-20th century. Support Word Facts on  patreon.com/wordfacts  for even more.

Colonization, whether medieval  or modern, will likely have an effect on the language of the colonized, but this is not why many never-colonized places have little linguistic influence. In Bhutan, a country which has never been colonized, the official language is Dzongkha. This language is related to Tibetan, but will feature influence from the totally unrelated Nepali, which is spoken by some in Bhutan, but mainly Nepal, where the territory has never been colonized either. That said, the influence is minor—Dzongkha and other Bhutanese languages are pretty Tibetan—but the nations are not easily traverse due to mountainous terrain, and Bhutan especially has a weak economy, and does not have much trade with its neighbors. All of these other factors could play a role in language development, but often do not.

It is hard— though not impossible —to overstate the influence of French on the English language. While French was spoken by the ruling minority, even Englishmen began to learn it after some time. In fact, right after his conquest of England, William the Conqueror established a council that would become the Parliament. It operated in French for nearly 300 years (AD 1066-1362), and even in the 14th century, this was thought by some to merely be rebellious to the French, with whom they were at war, rather than a permanent change.

Although certain silent letters in English are normal, like a terminal E, others, like 'pterodactyl's' P, or even 'thumb's' B draw some more attention. This terminal B in many words is a remnant of something that was originally pronounced, such a in 'tomb'. The problem is that it is [m] is so similar a sound and these types of sounds at the end of the word anyway are often not aspirated, so not pronouncing a [b] makes little difference. In other words like 'thumb', the B was never pronounced even in Old English, but it got attached due to association to other words like 'dumb'. This is occasionally called a parasitic -b. See more on 'thumb' here .

The word 'thumb' and 'tumor' have a distant etymological relation, but many other languages no longer share this root too. 'Thumb' is from Old English, but 'tumor' comes from Latin meaning 'to swell'. Indeed the Latin, Greek, Sanskrit words etc. for 'thumb' are each very different looking, but each of those languages, and many other Indo-European languages have that share this root and mean totally different things, like the Greek 'τύμβος' meaning 'burial mound, or the Sanskrit तुम्र (túmra), 'thick'. Each of these have different definitions, but they all relate to the same sorts of things: unevenness or swelling. See more on 'thumb' here .

The historical suffix '-le' can be used to form appliances, as mentioned yesterday, but it can also be used to form the words for animals. For instance, 'beetle' has this historical suffix, but it has no relation to the vegetable 'beet'. Instead, it comes from 'bite'. Really, this suffix meant something along the lines of what '-er' means today, thus the equivalent now would be 'biter': in Old English though, it was 'bitula'. This equivalence does not work as clearly with the examples given yesterday, 'thimble' and 'bridle'—in Modern English 'thumb-er' and 'bite-r' again—but '-er' can also used to form appliances etc.. See yesterday's post for more.

Both 'bridle' and 'thimble' have the suffix '-le' which historically was used to form the name of appliances. In the case of 'bridle', this comes from the 'bit' put into the horse's mouth. While the word would have originally been something like 'bittle', it has since changed into something that could not exist without the historical suffix and still be meaningful. In the case of 'thimble', again, the word has changed a slightly since the initial form, which came from 'thumb'. There will be more on this tomorrow. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Standardization of a language is usually seen as a progressive step in cementing history and increasing intelligibility, but this is not permanent. Classical Mongolian was standardized starting in the 17th century, but fell between Middle Mongolian and Modern Mongolian, so not only were the sounds rapidly changing making the older lettering system obsolete or inadequate, but this period was marked with great political changes. Classical Mongolian's orthography was highly standardized, unlike today, where there is some standardizations, but multiple writing systems are used, mostly Mongolian script or Cyrillic, or sometimes Chinese characters for the large Mongolian population in China.  Support Word Facts on  Patreon.com/wordfacts

As discussed before, 'Easter' and 'Pesach' don't have etymological relations [1], but this is not true of the words for Easter in every language. In Greek, for instance, Pascha (Πάσχα) comes from the Aramaic 'Paskha' (פסחא), which itself comes from the Hebrew word that is Pesach. However, 'Easter' is thought to have come about lexically from the Germanic goddess 'Ēostre', but the only source that attests this is from St. Bede. Reconstructionist work of other Germanic languages have bolstered these claims, but it is still somewhat in question.

Christian and Jewish holidays naturally have some relation in terms of dates—though often not in purpose—and this weekend is one such example. This weekend fall the holidays of Shavuos (שָׁבוּעוֹת) and Pentecost (Πεντηκοστή), which both are marked from the number of days after Pesach and Easter respectively. However, unlike with Pesach and Easter, which have no etymological similarities in English (though they do in Greek), Shavuos and Pentecost both are named for time. In the former case, the word literally means 'weeks' as the holiday falls 7 weeks after the second night of Pesach (50 days from the first night), and in the latter case 'Pentecost' means 'fiftieth', as part of a phrase meaning 'fiftieth day', as it is the 50th day after Easter. Have a happy holiday! Get more out of Word Facts by visiting patreon.com/wordfacts

As can be seen in this map of US women's suffrage from 1919, the state abbreviations are not what they are today. In fact, there were no official abbreviations until 1963, though the post office still accepted many common ones. Moreover, the problem was not that there needed to be clearer abbreviations necessarily, but to make sure that there are was enough room for the postcodes and city-names together: up to 23 characters. Initially, there was also a conflict with the US Government Printing Office (GPO) and the Coast Guard's respective abbreviations; the GPO adopted the Post Office standard, but the Coast Guard has not, which leads to some discrepancies. For more Linguistics In the Wild: check out this link: https://stonewordfacts.blogspot.com/search?q=litw

Though fatigue means 'tiredness', this is not what is meant in the phrase 'military fatigues'. These both come from the same French word, but both of these nouns have very different connotations today. In French 'fatigue' has always meant 'weariness', so the continued sense of this is not surprising, but this then applied to occupational, and in particular military labors in general, and then uniforms later on in the 18th century. Interestingly, the words 'weary' and 'wear' appear to have this same relationship, especially in light of the phrases "worse for wear" and "wear and tear", but the two are not related. Get more on patreon.com/wordfacts

As discussed yesterday, the word for ' glove ' in many Germanic and Romantic languages is 'want', with language-specific twists. However, English's is obviously different, but it still belongs to it's own family of related words. 'Glove' dates back to Old English, but goes back all the way to Proto-Indo-European, from 'ga-' which signified collections, and 'lāp-' meaning 'flat', though not related to the English 'lap'. In Scots the word is 'gluve', and the Icelandic 'glófi'. Even in Middle English the word for a palm of the hand was 'lofe'. Check out more on Patreon.com/wordfacts

It is not uncommon in English words that end in -et to find they come from French, and this is especially true of older words, because it is a French diminutive suffix, like in 'ballet' or ' pocket '. 'Gauntlet', for instance, is a long glove, particularly in armor. Indeed, the word for 'glove' in French, then and now, is 'gant', but this comes from Germanic origin. The word in German for a 'glove' is ' Handshuh ' [2] (literally 'hand-shoe), but it wasn't always so literal. In Frankish the word was 'want', and this is still true in other Germanic languages like Dutch, Danish, and Swedish more or less. It is less common that a Germanic word would enter a Romance language than the reverse, but even Medieval Latin got the word for 'glove', 'wantus', from this.

The names for the letters in many alphabets like in German or Estonian etc. more or less mirror the sounds being represented: not so in English. Though the story is complicated for each letter, most shifted away from the simpler pronunciations in the 15th century, but in a few cases it happened later. It wasn't until the 17th century that U was pronounced [iu] like in 'few' (or simply 'ew'!) rather than just [u] as in 'too'. The only one that isn't known for sure is the pronunciation of Y; in German it's 'upsilon', like the Greek ɛ 'epsilon' and in French it's 'igrec' meaning 'Greek I', but the English name for the letter is more removed and less certain. There will be more on the whole alphabet's pronunciation soon. Support this blog on patreon.com/wordfacts for even more content!

Following yesterday's post about the folk-etymology surrounding dreidls , if someone needed further evidence that they're not of Semitic origin, it would be as easy as going to ask a child. 'Dreidl' (דרײדל‎) comes from 'dreien' meaning 'to turn', like the German 'drehen', but in Hebrew the word is 'sevivon' (סביבון), and this was invented by the 5 year-old son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who had invented Modern Hebrew. It is based from the Semitic root meaning 'to turn', but at the time, another word from Hayyim Nahman Bialik, "kirkar", was in use, based on the root for "to spin" but this did not catch on in spoken Hebrew. Many other words were used in Yiddish dialects too, based on Germanic or Slavic words.

A dreidl, spelt in a variety of different ways, is a kind of top found traditionally in many different European cultures. In Jewish traditions however, they are 4-sided with each side having a different letter: נ (Nun), ג (Gimel), ה (Hei), ש (Shin). These stand in for Yiddish words, here transliterated; the Nun for 'nisht' ("nothing"), Hei for 'halb' ("half"), Gimel for 'gants' ("all"), and Shin for 'shtel ayn' ("put in"). These are more or less translations of the German equivalents, but these days many think of them as coming from the Hebrew phrase, transliterated, 'nes gadol hayah sham' ("a great miracle happened there"), and even in some parts of the word the Shin is swapped for a פ (Peh) to mean 'here' instead, but this is not true. More will be discussed about this in tomorrow's post.