Word Facts

Although 'frump' and its adjectival counterpart 'frumpy' now generally relate to fashion, this is a newer development. In the 16th, the word referred to bad humor or a bad temperment, believed to be from the Dutch 'verrompelen' ('to wrinkle'). Eventually the word connoted not just a bad attitude, but someone who has a such a personality, and thus the idea of a dowdy woman came after to be associated with the word. For more from Word Facts, visit patreon.com/wordfacts

There is a rumor that 'Elephant and Castle"—the junction in London—was named for "La Infanta de Castilla". The trouble is that no one knows which, assuming this is true. Eleanor of Castile and Infanta Maria are often mentioned, but the word 'infanta' wasn't used in English at this time. Another idea is that it refers to Catherine of Aragon, which would be more sensible chronologically, especially since she is known to have lived in the area at one time, and since it is certain that the whole area is named for a pub and inn, this is likely to be true. Support for Word Facts comes from patrons at Patreon.com/wordfacts

Britain has a number of cities with '-caster' in the names. Like how ' Lancaster ' comes from 'Loncastre' (long castle), 'Doncaster' and 'Tadcaster' etc. come from the Roman 'castre' meaning 'fort'. In the case of 'Tadcaster', mentioned as 'tatecastre' in the Doomsday Book , it was just from the name of a person, i.e. Tate's (Táda in Old English) castle. The origin of 'Doncaster' comes from the Don River, but after that the origin is a bit less certain. If there is another '-caster', leave a comment and it may be the subject for another post. Support Word Facts on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Of course, a pound of feathers weighs as much as a pound of lead—from the classic riddle—but lead is famous for being heavy. Indeed, the word 'plummet' comes from the word 'plommet' (diminutive of 'plomb') meaning 'small lead'.  Initially, the noun meant a steep drop, like it does now, but also was the nominal form of 'plumb', meaning 'to measure depth' i.e. 'plummet' was a measurement of depth. The word has only been used as a verb since the '30's, though this is now quite popular. Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

The word 'eleven' comes from a root meaning 'one left', or 'one after'. This is not a reference to numerals—that wouldn't make sense anyway—or subtraction, but rather just from an old way of speaking. Most of the numbers follow a base-ten pattern , but 'eleven' from the Old English 'enleofan' (literally "one leaving") follows a more colloquial pattern. Old English kennings were euphemistic idioms made from compounding nouns, so like how "darotha laf" (lit. "spear leavings") connoted 'retreating warriors', the roots for 'eleven' and 'twelve' both just meant "one/two after ten". This is the same for most Germanic languages. There will be more on this tomorrow. Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

Musical notes are written in a scale denoted with letters A-G, but this could have been with numbers, or tonic sol-fa (do, re, mi...). Indeed, many other systems have been used through history. Given that other terms like 'octave', 'third' and 'fifth', now for music originated for calendars, it may not be surprising that the most popular, now-ubiquitous system was one from the calendar . Letters used to denote with which day of an 8-day week a year or month started was already in use, called dominical letters, so the pattern would have already been familiar to many.

'Sunday', in Romance languages like French and Spanish is 'Dimanche' and 'Domingo' respectively, which compared to English is the most different etymologically, and moreover it is the only day in French not to end in '-di'. This comes from 'dominus' meaning 'Lord' (i.e. Christ's day), but it was also very significant to the Romans. Dominical letters were a way of relating the date to the day of the week. The Roman denoted the days A-H ( there were 8 days in a Roman week ). In an A year, the 1st of January would be a Sunday, and so on, so knowing the dominical letter would make it easy to know what day of the week any date was. This is still used to calculate the date of Easter, but to learn how it influenced music, make sure to stay up to date tomorrow.

There are lots of new German words that entered English, like 'wanderlust', 'zeitgeist' or 'blitzkrieg', sort of. 'Blitzkrieg' (lightning warfare) comes from the German language, but the word was not used by German military, and it was only used in German propaganda after the Western Allies started using the term. Perhaps the most important reason why this is come down to the fact that it isn't military doctrine, because it is not precise, and many historians today debate whether it should be applied at all. Also, the term that was used as a sort of catchall for a rapid combined arms doctrine was 'Bewegungskrieg', meaning 'mobile warfare'. To get the most out of this blog, visit patreon.com/wordfacts

Most major world languages, as well as those which did not have contact with Europe until fairly recently have a word for 'Europe' derive the name from ' Europa '. Even in Chinese 'Ōuzhōu' (歐洲/欧洲) comes from an abbreviation of 'Ōuluóbā', the L and the B coming from the R and the P respectively. One exception came from Turkic languages that used to have a name along the lines of 'Frangistan', still occasionally in use informally today, meaning 'land of the Franks ' particularly after the crusades. Indeed, in Hindi the word for Europeans is 'Firang' of the same root. Support Word Facts on Patreon.com/wordfacts

'Frank' has meant many things over the years, from 'honest and direct' today to 'free' in the past [1] relating to the political stature of the historical Franks . However, it is also present, from the same etymology, in 'frankincense': a plant from Somalia. 'Frankincense' is mentioned a fair amount in the Bible . This is because 'frank' also meant 'high-quality; superior' in the past, again relating to the Franks. Literally the name would just mean 'high-quality incense' therefore. In the Bible, the name is לבונה (levona/lebonah), from a root meaning 'white'.

Tagalog has a lot of loanwords, discussed yesterday ; around 49% of their vocabulary is of non-native origins. Some sources seem obvious, like Spanish (13%) and American English (7%) as they were recently colonial powers for The Philippines, as well as Chinese (7%) as there has long been a Chinese presence in the islands. However, Nahuatl, spoken by the Aztecs makes up a larger 10% of the lexical makeup of modern Tagalog. This may seem surprising, especially considering that they are the total length of the Pacific Ocean apart, but this happened two ways. First, Aztecs were brought over from New Spain before Mexican independence, but also some words were pick up by Spaniards themselves. In any other Asian or Pacific language, even one Indigenous American word can be rare that it has led aided research about trans-Pacific migration patterns. Support Word Facts on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Just because something is a loan word doesn't mean that it will mean the same thing in both languages. This happens in many languages, but take for the example 'delikado' in Tagalog meaning dangerous compared to the original Spanish 'delicado' (delicate) or 'tsika' (gossip) from 'chica' (girl). There are lots of examples of this possibly because Spanish is so different linguistically from Tagalog, and that there was always a majority indigenous population during the colonial period.

Although the United States is pretty young compared to some countries, there are examples of how place names change seemingly randomly. The ' Bronx ' is one [1], but also the lesser-known Pawling, also in New York, was originally written 'Pauling', named for Catherine Pauling, whose father owned the area. The name only changed due to a misprint from U to a W, but since then the name stuck.

'Liaison' was originally a cooking term, as discussed yesterday , but there is more than one way how that word changed. 'Ligation' is a doublet of 'liaison', meaning that they both came from the same word but diverged phonetically over time. I this case, 'ligate' came directly from Latin for 'to tie' (ligare), whereas 'liaison' evolved within French first. Many words in medicine, in this case specifically surgery come directly from Latin, and, more importantly, have not existed as long, such that they are more similar to the original.

A liaison now means a close meeting of two people, sometimes secretly, but it was originally a cooking term. Still today it can be used to refer to a binding or thickening agent in cooking or baking, often based on eggs, but over time the idea of bringing two ingredients together started to refer more often to people, as is the case today. As it happens, in linguistics the term refers to when a normally 'silent' letter, such as in French, is pronounced when the following word begins in a vowel, such as the S in 'mes amis' (my friends). Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

The Victorians came up with lots of euphemisms for religiously inspired cursing. Some lasted , but like 'Crikey', now often associated with Australia, many were just exported. 'Crikey' was derived in mid-19th century off of the word 'Christ'. The term has since moved away from its religious connotations—perhaps the sign of a successful euphemism—and while it is used in many English-speaking regions, it also shows how slang can so easily change. Watch more in our video here .

While Belarus means, and is often referred to simply as 'White Russia', the 'white' may not have anything to do with that color. There was also a Black Ruthenia and Red Ruthenia also referred to as a 'Rus', now the former is mostly in western Belarus and the latter was mostly in western Ukraine. A leading theory suggests that this system had been used in Western Europe, apparently inherited by the Mongols who used it just to denote direction. Though the colored Rus regions were not used in Russia, since 'Black Russia' was also linked geographically to the pagan Balts, the term 'White Russia gained additional Christian connotations in Western Europe. By the time of the country's independence, the color in the name distinguished them from the Soviets. One way or another, through hundreds of years, the color in the name stuck. For commentary on the photos cut from the recent videos, click here .

There's a joke that the planet ' Uranus ' sounds like 'your anus', but that's not so far off. Although the etymology is disputed, the most probable source comes from the enlarged form of *ṷorsó- from the Greek for 'to urinate'. It's related through the Proto-Indo-European root to the Sanskrit várṣati 'to rain' and from there the connection to clouds, and the god thereof, might make more sense. Indeed, the name 'Uranus' (or 'Ouranos') might be better translated as 'rainmaker', historo-etymologically speaking, than just the god of the sky. For more on Uranus, see the 7-part series on naming the cosmos .

The city of Essen, Germany is sometimes thought to be from the infinitive / participle German 'essen' ('eating'), but this is mistaken. The oldest-known name of the city is 'Astnide', but obviously this is very different. The name was, among the many stages of change, once called 'Esnede', which should give some idea how that could become what it is now. This is still somewhat theoretical, but this would make the name of the city having come from an old word for 'ash tree', which in modern German is now 'Esche'. The newest video's topic relates to this in some ways. Watch the teaser below, or you can watch the whole video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA7mMfX3Bh0&t=7s

The landscape of Great Britain is not so similar to the far more rugged Scandinavian coast, which is why when describing long narrow inlets between cliffs, the usual word is the Norwegian 'fjord', even for places in, even for in the Americas. Nonetheless, English already had a word for that, sort of: 'firth'. Such as in the 'Strait of Firth' or the 'Solway Firth', there are physical features in Britain with this name. As it happens, this word too ultimately comes from Old Norse, same as 'fjord', but it entered Middle English through Scotts, which should not be so surprising considering that these firths are mostly in the North of England or in Scotland.  Watch the most recent video here:  https://youtu.be/kA7mMfX3Bh0

In very old Latin writings, C, K, and Q were all used to represent the sounds /k/ and /g/, those two not yet distinguished in writing. This is mostly the same as in English now, and similarly certain variants were prefered in certain contexts, such as Q before a rounded vowel (hence Qu-). C eventually replaced K in most words, one exception being 'Kalend' (calend) , and G was invented off of C—that's why they look so similar—and in places where the Latin alphabet was adopted, like Roman England or places where the Romance languages are spoken today. Elsewhere, like in Germanic areas or Eastern Europe, this was not so, and they kept K. This was influenced also by runic letters, but only so far. For more on English spelling, watch the newest video here , or for the history of letters, click here .

The name of 'Lancaster' in England now might sound a bit abstract: not so in Chaucer's time. As late as the writing as Chaucer, the city would have been called 'Loncastel' or even 'Longcastel', such as in Chaucer's "Deeth of Blauche the Dutchess". It is called 'Loncastre' in the Doomsday Book [1], and while the latter element means 'fort; castle', the former is not 'long', but 'Lune', denoting the local river. Moreover, it shows that the '-st-' of 'castle' was pronounced once as the spelling indicated. To see more about why English spelling no longer reflects pronunciation, and to hear more from Chaucer, watch the new video: https://youtu.be/kA7mMfX3Bh0

Esperanto was originally meant to be a language for business and politics. This never manifested itself, but there are a few times brands have given a sort of wink to the language. The formerly Swiss, presently American watch company Movado (always in motion) takes approximately half of its watches' names from Esperanto, including Belamodo (beautiful fashion), Fiero ("pride"), and Verto ("head top"). Other brands have done this as well on a smaller scale, though usually only as a nod to the original goal, with no real success. Make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel for the video out tomorrow: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNofHfYEoM2l7fu2340gsDQ

Javanese is the most widely spoken language that is not an official language. With around 100 million speakers—roughly 42% of Indonesia's population—this language could have been a suitable choice for Indonesia's national language, or even just one of them, but since the only official language for whole country is Bahasa Indonesia (there are certainly regionally official languages), it can be argued that Javanese is the most widely spoken language not official recognized by any country. The reason for this was to avoid favoritization of one language over the rest; since around 700 languages are spoken in the immense nation, Bahasa Indonesia was in some respects fabricated in order to be more nationalistic. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNofHfYEoM2l7fu2340gsDQ

Some have said that Captain James Cook was not a captain, pointing to the fact that he was a lieutenant , a commander, and post-captain. Those other facts are true, technically, but it shows a misunderstanding of what a post-captain is. First, there is no longer a position called 'post-captain', which nowadays is just called 'commander' or usually 'captain' depending upon the ship. Even so, and more importantly, at the time, a post-captain was an officer promoted from commander to captain, and moreover one who had seniority and whose name was publicly 'posted'. It also it signified that he commanded a rated ship, i.e. having three or more masts. The descriptor 'post-captain' has never been a title though, so even for the time he was addressed as 'Capt. Cook'. That is to say, in short, that Capt. Cook was not only a captain, but also of the the highest rank one could be.

German is famous for compounding things together, but its word for 'together', itself a compound, is formed of elements that can no longer be parsed. The German 'zusammen' (together) comes from 'zu-' (to) and 'sammen' (together), and like English with '-gether' coming from 'gather', the parts can no longer be separated. 'Sammen' is still part of many other compounds though, like 'sammlung' (collection; exhibition) or 'sammeln' (to collect). This is related to the English word 'same', and formerly 'sammen' (together) in Middle English, as well as many other words across Indo-European languages, including 'homos'—like 'homo-'—in Greek. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts .

We probably don't think of ritual embalming when we think of lip balm, but looking at those two words together might make you think twice. The words are clearly related, but it is 'embalming' meaning 'preparing a corpse for burial' which is the divergent one. 'Balm' and 'embalm', and for that matter 'balsam' and 'balsamic' all used to mean simply 'something, usually an ointment to give a pleasing odor'; 'balm' is also just a variant of an earlier 'balsm'. However, nowadays, both 'balm' and 'embalm' have moved away from the connotation to scent and towards skin preservation, which granted was what balsamic ointments generally were for anyway, but the meaning stayed more or less in 'balsam' and 'balsamic'. If you liked that, you can help the blog over at patreon.com/wordfacts

Many ancient cultures used letters to represent numbers as well, but not every alphabet is equal. For instance, the runic alphabet Young Futhark formerly used in Northern Europe only had at certain points in history as few as 16 letters, and therefore numbers were limited greatly. Among other problems, their calendars, which were based off of a 19-year Metonic cycle like the Babylonians, so at times like these, special runes would be made up for specific usually calendrical purposes. Support Word Facts on Patreon.com/wordfacts

English is pretty good making it blurring the lines between nouns, verbs, and adjectives: not usually so much with Latin. Nevertheless, the months now spoken of as nouns began as nouns. This is because for much of Roman history, the calends were more important linguistically than the notion of the whole month together. Not only would a month be said in the form of, say “the March month”, but dates were given in reference to the calends and ides. In fact, it was the practice that dates after the ides of a month were given in reference to the next, so September 16 was expressed as "the 14th day before the October calends" (a.d. XIV Kal. Oct.). Luckily, dates have gotten a bit simpler since then, especially since the ides are not the same month-to-month. Support this blog on patreon.com/wordfacts

Although we think of a week as 7 days, for the Romans, it was 8. This, along with their 38 weeks, left an unorganized series of 50 days in the winter—and no, the math doesn’t work out with that*. The Romans were weird—by modern standards—about time-keeping. Even with these weeks of 8 days, they were also in another sense weeks of 9, because this unorganized period of 50 days were considered, culturally speaking, to be the ninth days of the week even while they were all clustered together in the winter, hence their name ‘nundinae’. The name comes from the Latin for ‘ninth day’ (nōnus and -din-). This, along with ‘ nones ’ are examples of a Roman preoccupation with categorizing days by series of nines, but as explained yesterday , this was not always the same as actually counting 9. *The nunidae was actually 50 days, meaning that the standard year was about a week and a half shy of 365 days, and this is also why February is so short. The Romans would periodically add the days i