Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony
Someone mentioned the Emmy Awards the other day, and I realized I wasn't sure why they were called that. I figured they must have been named after some famous person...
Archive for Etymology
piggy bank
If you search the web to determine the etymology of the phrase piggy bank, you'll quickly conclude that there is little disagreement over its origin. Many web pages give the...
eucalyptus and hell are cognates
The other day, Jim and I were looking at a eucalyptus tree, and I realized that although the eu- part was obvious, I had no idea what the -calyptus part...
muggy
Mary Anne noted in passing recently that it was muggy in Chicago, and I realized that though I've known the word all my life, I didn't know where it came...
boson
I've known the word boson for years, but I don't think I knew until recently that it's named after Indian physicist Satyendranath Bose (also written “Satyendra Nath Bose”), as in...
History of the phrase “people of color”
Just encountered the phrase “men of color” in an 1857 article about the Dred Scott case from the Albany, NY Evening Journal. I could have sworn that there was a...
warfarin
I've known for a while that there's an anticoagulant named warfarin, but it never occurred to me to look up its etymology; I always just assumed it had something to...
fifth column
I always wondered vaguely about the origin of the term "fifth column," but never got around to looking it up 'til now. Turns out (according to the abovelinked Wikipedia article)...
Three pirate lasses
It occurred to me recently to wonder about the derivation of the word "cutlass." Turns out it's from Middle French "coutel," meaning knife, which ultimately derives from Latin "culter," meaning...
baramin
Recently was reading some discussion or other of creationism and came across the word "baramin." Creationists use the word to refer to the "created kinds" of animals referred to in...