Word Facts

The first two political parties in the UK, the Whigs and the Tories are both derived of Celtic pejoratives. In the case of 'Whig', the term comes from 'whiggamore' which was coined for the 'Whiggamore Raid': a march on Edinburgh by the Kirk Party during the 3rd English Civil War. 'Whiggamore' actually means ' mare drivers' though, but was nickname for those who were anti-parliamentarian, and generally protestant. 'Tory' (not the same as the contemporary Conservative and Unionist party, even if the nickname is still used) on the other hand comes from Irish 'toraidhe' meaning 'outlaw' referring to Irish highwaymen or Scottish marauders. This name was then first pejoratively, then officially applied to the political party because of their support of the Catholics, specifically under King James II, a Catholic. Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

Apples have been discussed here many times before, but it is not enough to just say it was a generic term for fruit. Almost any kind of produce, with the notable exception of berries, could be called an apple—or at least in compounds—in vegetables like cucumbers or ' earth-apples ', actual fruits like bananas, 'apple of paradise', or even some nuts. Etymologically speaking, 'melon' and 'pumpkin' too have appley Indo-European roots (more on this another day). This is why you may see 'berry'—which was also somewhat generic—referred to as the only native "the only native fruit name" other than 'apples', even if other fruits have roots in Old English. Support Word Facts on Patreon.com/wordfacts , and become the apple of my eye.

The turn of the last century saw the rise of many utopian visions, including socialism and fascism, and the targeting of Esperanto speakers—to the point of imprisonment and execution—was found in both. That's been mentioned here before , but it is worth noting that the respective reasons were very similar, despite many supposed difference in the two systems. Both fascist governments, in Germany and Japan, and Soviet governments feared supranational left-wing revolutionary ideas that underpinned the pacifistic Esperantist movement. This is still true in the case of the Soviets, who were themselves nominally revolutionaries hoping for a new, supranational left-wing society, because these Esperantists would be able to communicate outside of the Soviet union. Ironically, the only thing that stopped the Soviet persecution of Esperantists was an invasion of the Nazis, who also systematically attacked Esperantists, but less so numerically speaking. Recommended reading: Concise E

While more well known for War and Peace, Tolstoy was a passionate advocate for Esperanto. Apparently, his belief in Esperanto went as far as to think it was preparation for the Kingdom of G-d. In 1892, he wrote an article for the only Esperanto newspaper, the spread of which—from Germany to Russia—was then banned by the Tzar. Get more on Esperanto and its Politics here . Support Word Facts on Patreon.com/wordfacts

The name of the Israel's national Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem (יד ושם) is sometimes translated as 'a hand and a name', and while this is a possible meaning verbatim, it ignores the context. It comes from Isaiah 56: "To them I will give within my temple and its walls a *memorial and a name* better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever" This verse deals with the concerns of those who can't have children, and will not have anyone to remember them, so this 'memorial' is far more suitable. However, the imagery of 'hand' is at once present in Hebrew, such as one might imagine a hand reaching out. (This post is not endorsed by Yad Vashem, but there is a link attached in honor of Holocaust Memorial Day)

You may here that the Cold War was so named because it did not see direct armed conflict. This is true, and it has led to the retronymic phrase 'hot war', but the term was invented and in use before the Cold War began. Usually, the phrase is linked to George Orwell back in 1945, and he was certainly not the only one to use this term. This is all to say that people referred to the Cold War as such even before it could be confirmed cold. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

English has both ' -berg ' and ' borough ' and others in different place names, but another variant, '-berry' also exists. Although there are plenty of places named after plants, this actually exist as a dialectal form for both 'burrow' but also more often a 'mound; hill'. It is the latter meaning, however, which makes its way into place names in the place of '-berg'. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

There are lots of streets marked in the UK as '-gate', such as 'Highgate' in London is not actually related to 'gate' as a word for doors in a wall. Instead, it comes from the same root as the German (especially Austrian) 'Gasse' meaning 'street'. Many English words have German equivalents for which the main phonetic difference is [s] in German to [t] in English. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Some of the most recognisable dishes of India and Vietnam respectively might include vindaloo and pho, but these actually come from Europe, sort of, and their etymologies reflect this, definitely. 'Vindaloo' is Portuguese, coming from the phrase 'vin d'alho' meaning ‘wine and garlic (sauce)’; NB: 'alho' is a compound related to 'aioli'. 'Pho' comes from when Vietnam was a French colony, and was introduced to "pot-au-feu". This literally means "pot on the fire", and was just a stew, usually beef with vegetables. Of course, with both of these, the style changed somewhat to accommodate local ingredients and preferences, as will always happen. If you know any surprisingly appropriated foods, right it in the comments Check out the new Word Facts video here . Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Language and class is out:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqae3o_9wjE

Another subdivision from among the historical English counties is 'rape' used in Sussex, but there is some debate about whether this is from the French or English, and not because no one wants to be associated with that word. Most people take this to be from the Old English rāp (rope), as this is how divisions would have been measured and shown. This is also found in a few other Germanic languages. The other idea, though less popular, is that like the criminal sense of the word it comes from the Old French 'raper' meaning 'take by force', which did actually originally refer to land dating back to Latin. The reason for this thinking is that the Normans would have not wanted to adopt a local word, but local words are found throughout and after the Norman administration of England. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Along with other historical districts of England , these were often further subdivided into 'wapentake'. This doesn't obviously resemble other modern word exactly, but you may be able to see it's a compound, or at least, it was. It comes via Old English ('wǣpenġetæc') from the Old Norse 'vápnatak', which is built from vápn (weapon) and taka (take). It's exact meaning is unclear, but it is thought to come from a process of voting by raising weapons, or it could have just been a district from which men were selected to raise an army. More on districts tomorrow. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

England has 48 counties, but some of the subdivisions are no longer used. For instance, 'ridings' in Yorkshire, 'wapentakes' in the North and Midlands, and 'hundreds' elsewhere. Two of these resemble other words, but a 'riding' has nothing to do with horses; it comes from 'thrithjungr' in Norse ('trithing' in Old English) meaning 'a third' referring to the division of North, East, and West Yorkshire, though the initial sound was assimilated due to the preceding '-th' or '-t' of the actual places. However, a 'hundred' is actually from 'hundred' as the number, but is thought to relate to the area of 100 hides, 1 hide being equal to between 60-120 acres. 'Wapentake' will be discussed in the post tomorrow. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

'Rooster', 'roster' and 'roast' are all related etymologically even if it is not immediately apparent what the root might be. In this case, they all come from the idea of straight lines. For 'roster', a list, and 'roast', which is done on a gridiron with parallel lines, this may be more obvious. For 'rooster', this is became the name comes from a perch for chickens, i.e. a roost. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Many words words with meanings long the lines of 'scratch' or 'gnaw' can be traced back to an approximated common root. For instance, 'abrasion', 'corrode', 'erode' 'rodent' and even ' rostrum ' all are thought to have derived from an element that would look like '*red-'. The list goes on and clearly includes words of many other languages, but it is also worth noting some others that have been included that would be less obvious nowadays, like 'rascal', 'rash' and 'razor'. It is clear to see that both semantically and morphologically, these derivatives have strayed far from what it understood to be the ancestor. Support Word Facts on patreon.com

A rostrum can refer to either a stage for public speech, or in zoological terminology, a beak. This discrepancy, however, was not as odd in its original context. Not only are the two of the stiff protuberances, but actually referred to a part of the Forum of Rome, where it was decorated with the beaks of ships. This is why the word also originated as a plural. It is now used commonly in biology. Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

If a cleaner cleans, and a writer writes, does a carpenter carpent?—No. There are many words for which no parsing is possible anymore, but in these case there isn't really a historical form either. In the case of 'carpenter', it comes via Old French from the Latin 'carpentarius (artifex)' meaning 'carriage (maker)'. This makes 'carpenter' related to 'car' and even 'horse'.

'Pottage' can technically be used describe anything which is cooked in a pot, though usually it is used to refer to a stew, like 'peas pottage'. In some cases, these would be thickened with barley or oats, which eventually led not only to the creation of oatmeal as a dish, but of 'porridge' as a variant of 'pottage'. These are both doublets of 'potage' (soup) which was adopted from French in the 16th century. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

If you've ever heard the term 'Union Jack' for the flag of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, there's a reason for this. 'Union' just refers to the Act of Union (1707), but 'jack' comes from the navy—as many vexolocigal terms do—wherein a 'jack' is a banner that is placed at the front of a ship when it is at port. This is not to be confused with an ensign, which is a naval banner placed off the back of a back of a ship. In most cases, if one of those two is identical to the national flag, it is the jack which is a greater variant, visually, compared to the ensign, but in the case of the UK where the trend of the jack were set, this is not the case. Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

If you would think that the official animal of Canary Islands would be the canary, you would be wrong. The national animal is chosen for the name of the country, however, but this comes from Latin, where 'Canariae Insulae' means 'Islands of Dogs'. The dogs are seen as well on the coat of arms. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

It would be easy to think that rebracketing—the process of forming words by breaking down others and reaffixing them in previously unproductive ways, e.g. 'workaholic' from 'alcoholic' which was never a combining form beforehand—would be a very lengthy historical process, but this is not true necessarily. Newer words like 'cyber' or 'blog' come from Internet abbreviations for 'cybernetics' and 'web-log', but now also affix to words like in 'cyberspace' or 'video-blog'. These were previously just words, but can now act as fairly productive combining forms. Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

The words 'capitulate' and 'recapitulate' are clearly from the same root word, despite the fact that they aren't semantically similar. 'Recapitulate' (sometimes just abbreviated as 'recap') just means 'to summarize', and 'capitulate' means 'to surrender', but both of them come in some way from 'capitulum', Latin for 'head'. 'Capitulate' comes from Medieval Latin while 'recap' is from New Latin, but this is not why they are so different; it is because they both used to have a meaning related to 'chapter', but 'capitulate' eventually took the meaning of "to draw up a chapter...of a surrender treaty". Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

The phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" is a legal one, but unlike what people might expect from the precision of legalese, it doesn't have a real definition. In general, it relates to misconduct of government officials—this is what makes it 'high'—but it does not exclusively relate to criminal activity, and instead comes down to the higher standard for action placed on officials. Indeed, a 'high crime' is one exclusive to those with authority, but together "high crimes and misdemeanors" in the US and UK can come down to the mere allegation of misconduct. It isn't that there are precedents for it or anything, but that what makes something a misdemeanor isn't necessarily codified, this comes down a great deal to judgement. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

No one knows where 'poutine' comes from exactly, but there are some theories. A leading theory is that it comes from the word ' pudding ', along the lines of other savory puddings. It also sounds quite similar, especially considering the differences between the French and Canadian English accents. It could also come from the Provençal 'poutingo' meaning "bad stew". For more food related content: check out the new Word Facts Podcast from today .

Just as languages written right-to-left present problems for sheet-music , math presents similar challenges. Indeed, while a great deal of math, including ' algebra ' and ' Arabic numerals ' were originally often right-to-left, Western dominance (and its own version of those numerals) has changed this. So, these days, many cultures will continue to write numbers and equations etc. left-to-right even if it appears in a right-to-left sentence like in Hebrew, whereas in other cultures, especially with Arabic, Persian etc. which have their own numerals and other symbols, they can do both. Generally however, they will use the Western numerals and work left-to-right. Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

Although today the word 'wistful' relates to emotion, and specifically longing, this has not always been the case. Indeed, the word 'wist'—while generally uncommon today—was originally the past participle of 'wit', meaning 'knowledge', but another form, 'wistly', meant 'intently'. How it got to the point where it is now, no one knows, but many attribute its form to an association with 'wishful', and its prefered use in poetry. Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

Dingos, in Australia, are known for looking like, and even breeding with, feral dogs, but they are native and not originally feral even. Indeed, while they may act so today, the word derives from 'dharuk din-gu', meaning ‘domesticated dingo/dog’. Moreover, early writings describe these as the only animals domesticated by the Aborigines. Support Word Facts at  patreon.com/wordfacts

French's ' gauche ' may not be a typical Romance derivative for 'left', but it is related to something that might surprise you. Both the English 'wonky' and to a far lesser extent 'wink' are related 'gauche', not because any of them had meant 'left', but because English words meant 'curved' or 'turn aside' and connotated 'awry'. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Left has long been associated with negative things. The word sinister comes from the Latin for 'left' (sinister) but the Romance language French has a totally different word for 'left'; they say 'gauche'. However, even that means 'awkward', so while the word is a different one, the meaning, ultimately, is not. Likewise, the French word 'droit' for 'right' is not from the Latin one 'dextrus', but is a doublet of the English 'direct'. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Many words have lost a certain amount of religious significance over time that still are used today. 'Adultery' is one, but also 'nefarious' is in another sense. Unlike 'adultery', 'nefarious' doesn't relate to any biblical law, but instead to all of them, coming from the Latin 'fas' meaning 'divine law; the 'ne-' is a negative suffix i.e. 'against divine law; wrong'. These days, 'nefarious' can denote any kind of wicked or otherwise criminal activity. Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts

Although there are plenty of words with both a legal or scientific and colloquial meanings, in the case of ‘adultery’, the legal meaning very much shaped the common one. Now, the word relates to an extramarital affair, and is illegal in many countries, hence the need for a specific definition. However, all marital notions are religious in origin, and therefore ‘adultery’ has had a far broader sense. Biblically speaking, what is thought of as adultery could relate—generally speaking—to anything forbidden sexually, including premarital intercourse, but also perversion and even lewdness. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

The word 'secular' has been around for a long time, but has only been antonymous with 'religious' since the Enlightenment. Before this, it meant 'of generations' and related to the passage of time in a fairly areligious sense. Even after the shift in meaning however, it is often difficult to transfer this term to other, non-western cultures, because many other religions do not hold the natural and supernatural world as dichotomous. This has led to Japan being legislatively both a secular and Shintoist nation. Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts