Friday, 31 July 2009

ski and shyster




scatter - shatter
skiff - ship
skirt - shirt
skit - shit
scot(-free) - shot
screed - shred
scuffle - shuffle

Thursday, 30 July 2009

school and hectic

Proto-Indo-European *seǵʰ- "to hold". The zero-grade form *sǵʰ- became Ancient Greek σχολή skholē which meant "stop, leisure", moving to "study," then "a place for study, school". This was borrowed into Latin as schola, then borrowed into Old English as scōl, which became English school, the h being added to the word to reflect the word's Latin/Greek origin.

The suffixed form *seǵʰ-es- became Ancient Greek ἔχω ekhō "to hold, possess, have", and ἑκτικός hektikos "habitual, customary, enduring", borrowed into Latin as hecticus, becoming Old French etique, then borrowed into Middle English as etik "recurring, consumptive". This became hectic in the 1500s, the h and c being added again to reflect the word's Latin/Greek origin. The word's meaning moved from "consumptive" to "feverishly intense activity" c1900.

Sunday, 26 July 2009

good etymology books





Erin McKean. Weird and Wonderful Words

Can anyone suggest some more?

Friday, 24 July 2009

carnival and scrabble

Doug Lennox's bestselling book Now You Know and the sequel Now You Know More trace "the concise and fascination history behind hundreds of expressions in our everyday language". Although these books are "thoroughly researched", I don't believe a word of them. Even so, I find them interesting, because although many of the etymologies are wrong or unsupported, I find myself wondering what the real answers are.

His entry "How did the word carnival come to mean a self-indulgent celebration" is a short explanation of Lent, and he only deals with the word itself in the final sentence:

In Church Latin, carne vale literally means "farewell to meat."

The OED tells us that theories like this one "belong to the domain of popular etymology" - i.e., are untrue. The real history of carnival involves metathesis. Latin carō, carnis is "flesh", and *carnem levāre is "the putting away or removal of flesh (as food)", which became carnelevārium, which became Italian carnevale, carnovale - the l and v switched places.

carō, carnis "flesh" is from a form *kar- from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)ker- "to cut". In Proto-Germanic, this became the metathetic variants *skrap- and *skarp. *skrap- became Old English scrapian (modern scrape), and Dutch schrabbelen "to scrawl", borrowed into English as scrabble. *skarp- became sharp.

Thursday, 16 July 2009

kvetch and pasta




Wednesday, 8 July 2009

Iran and Aryan

The history of the word Iran begins with *aryo-, which was a self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It's found in Sanskrit ārya-, the most common translation for which is "noble", and Avestan airya "venerable". Old Persian āriya- "compatriot" became Middle Persian Ēr "Iranian", and the genitive plural Ērān (AHD), and Modern Persian ایران Īrān "Persia" (OED).

The Sanskrit ārya- is the source of the word Aryan. Fortson explains how this word came to have racist connotations:

During the nineteenth century, it was proposed that this [*arya-] had been not only the Indo-Iranian tribal self-designation but also the self-designation of the Proto-Indo-Europeans themselves. (This theory has since been abandoned.) "Aryan" then came to be used in scholarship to refer to Indo-European. Some decades later it was further proposed that the PIE homeland had been located in northern Europe (also a theory no longer accepted), leading to speculations that the Proto-Indo-Europeans had been of a Nordic racial type. In this way "Aryan" developed yet another, purely racialist meaning, probably the most familiar one today. In Indo-European studies, "Aryan" (and Arisch in German) and "Indo-Aryan" are still frequently used in their older sense - "Aryan" to refer to Indo-Iranian (less commonly, Indo-European) and "Indo-Aryan" to refer to Indic.

The OED still has many etymologies containing the terms "Aryan" and "Indo-Aryan".

It was undoubtedly the work of the nineteenth century philologist Max Müller that helped popularize "Aryan" as a linguistic term. Müller is quoted as saying "an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar".

I was asked recently if Ireland and Iran were related. Unfortunately they aren't; the origin of Ireland and Irish is uncertain.

Tuesday, 7 July 2009

cushy and vigorish




Also see Orthanc and hysteresis.