Monday, 31 October 2016

Not So Royal Residences

Found myself in Windsor Great Park recently and recalled an interview on BBC Radio Berkshire with Anne Diamond when I launched my Berkshire Place Names. Our chat had been interrupted due to a serious traffic problem in Windsor and we took the opportunity to define the place name which, as you can see below, has nothing 'royal' about it whatsoever.

Buckingham Palace replaced St James' Palace as the official residence on the succession of Queen Victorias in 1837. It had been used by royalty since Queen Charlotte, consort of George III, used it as her private residence from 1716. Although there have been a number of houses on this site, the core of the present building had been built for John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham in 1703. This dukedom takes the name of the county town of Buckinghamshire, a name not seen before the early 10th century and one from Old English inga hamm following a personal name, this is 'the land in a river bend of the family or followers of a man named Bucca'.

Clarence House is another royal residence to have taken its name from a dukedom. Built by John Nash between 1825 and 1827, it is named for the Duke of Clarence, the future William IV. Unlike Buckingham there is no place of this name in England, this example comes from the town of Clare in Suffolk, a manor held by Lionel of Antwerp, the first Duke of Clarence. As a place name Clare is derived from the river of the same name, a British or Celtic name meaning 'bright river'.

Glamis Castle has been home to the Lyon family since the 14th century, although much of the present building dates from the 17th century. The village of Glamis takes its name from the Scottish Gaelic Glamhus, literally 'wide gap' and a reference to the vale in which it is found.

Hampton Court appears as it does today largely through the redevelopment of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey around 1515. This favourite of Henry VIII fell out of favour 15 years later and the king made himself well and truly at home here. As a place name it is quite common and has three possible origins, this example coming from 'farmstead in a river bend'.

Holyrood House may be in Scotland but is an Old English place name, from halig 'holy' and rod 'cross'. This building was originally a 12th century abbey founded by King David I. Its most prized relic being the 'black rood', said to be a part of the True Cross and brought to Scotland by his mother, St Margaret.

Osborne House had been bought by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert from Lady Isabella Blachford in October 1845, but soon proved far too small and what we see today is a reworking completed in 1851. The name of the place comes, once again, from Old English, here eowestre burna meaning 'the stream by the sheep fold'.

Windsor Castle, the name that first came to mind, comes from Old English windels ora and describes 'the bank or slope with a windlass'. Here, simply by defining the place name, we have an image of a steep and muddy bank where the only way to load and unload vessels on the river is by winching loads on a sled-like affair up and down the bank. Such names are those I particularly enjoy as it gives an image from history which no painter would commit to canvas and no camera could record.

Sunday, 23 October 2016

A Liquid Lesson

Not a cookery or brewing lesson but one looking at why various liquids, and not just drinks, are known by the names we use virtually every day.

Alcohol comes from the Arabic al-kuhul, this the fine metallic powder used to darken eyelids, for kahala means 'to stain, paint'. Not that the two things at all similar, other than in the method of production - sublimation.

Beer has been said to be a major factor in creating civilsation - it is argued that our ancestors were forced to settle temporarily to produce beer for drinking, a reasonable alternative to potentially bad water. Be that true or no there is no doubt beer has been drunk for thousands of years, as seen in the many seemingly diverse languages which speak of the drink using quite similar words. The English 'beer' is related to the Latin biber meaning 'to drink' which has given us the word 'imbibe'.

Blood is another word which has remained largely unchanged for millennia, the term seen in the ancient Proto-Indo-European bhlo-to which was also used to mean 'to swell, gush, spurt'. It takes little imagination to realise just how blood was most often viewed in those far-off days.

Broth is a Germanic word, seen in Old High German brod and its root bhreue meaning 'boil, bubble'. Here we see how 'broth', a liquid from cooking, and 'brew', the act of producing beer, are related and have a common root as the two use the same process.

Diesel comes directly from Rudolph Diesel, the German engineer who designed the diesel engine. The surname is a pet form of Mathias (or Matthew) and is from the Hebrew for 'Gift of God'.

Emulsion came to English from the French and earlier from Latin emulgere or 'to milk out'. Milk is the best example of an emulsion, that is drops of one liquid dispersed in another.

Gasoline uses the chemical suffix 'ine' after 'ol' (understood as representing 'oil') and 'gas'. Here the use of 'gas' is taken from 'gas' as both are fuels. Incidentally 'gas' is from the Greek khaos meaning 'empty space' and has the same origin as 'chaos'.

Gravy is an Anglo-French corruption of the Old French grave, itself from grane meaning both 'sauce' and 'stew'. Earlier this is seen as Latin granum, 'grain, seed'.

Honey is a Germanic term and originated as Proto-Indo-European keneko simply meaning 'yellow' or 'golden'.

Ink came to English from Old French encre which described the same thing. Taking it further back we find Greek enkauston from enkaiein meaning 'to burn' and related to 'caustic'. Here we need a history lesson, for this was also used to refer to a kind of painting produced using fire or heat. Later it was transferred to a purple-red ink used by Roman emperors and produced by heating the ground remains of certain shellfish - note the Code of Justinian prohibited common folk from making this ink on pain of death.

Juice, in its simplest form, refers to any flavoured liquid. Going back to Proto-Indo-European yeue it meant 'to blend, mix food' and from this came Sanskrit yus 'broth' and Lithuanian juse 'fish soup' among others.

Kerosene uses the chemical suffix 'ene' following a word derived from the Greek keros or 'wax'. The link here is that both contain paraffin.

Milk may be a noun but it is also a verb, indeed it is the action of milking which has given the product its name. Tracing this back to Proto-Indo-European we discover this has hardly changed since melg meant 'to stroke, wipe, rub off'.

Molasses has been adopted into English in the plural form, although this is seen as singular. This came to English from Portuguese melaco from Latin mellaceum or 'new wine' and ultimately from mellaceus or 'resembling honey'.

Oil is a comparatively late word for substances with a certain texture. Indeed olive oil must have been known since prehistory, although we have no idea what these ancestors knew the product as. The modern oil takes the name of possibly the earliest produced oil, that being olive oil and named for the olive. Ironically substances with this greasy or viscous texture are named from the early olive oil, itself derived from the olive which had the original meaning of 'oil' and has thus turned full circle.

Paint as a noun comes from the verb. This term came from French and Latin, both from the Proto-Indo-European root peig meaning 'to cut'. Hence first used to mean 'decorate' (pots, for example) the term now means the substance with which we most often decorate our homes.

Sauce originates from the Latin salsa, literally 'that which is salted'.

Syrup is from the Old French sirop 'sugared drink' and ultimately from Arabic sharab 'beverage, wine'.

Turpentine was first derived from the terebinth tree, hence its name, although now applied to that obtained from conifers. Terebinth trees are native to the Mediterranean, the name coming from Greek but here the etymological trail dries up and can only have been an early loan word from a non-Indo-European language.

Varnish began as a noun, this from Latin vernix meaning 'odorous resin'. Here the trail becomes unclear but it could well be derived from the Greek Berenike, the ancient Libyan city today known as Bengasi as this is where varnish is said to have been first used. This town is named after Berenike II, queen of Egypt whose name is now seen as Berenice.

Sunday, 16 October 2016

Acidic Answers

Not all acids are the highly corrosive substances introduced to us by our chemistry teacher. Amino acids for example are the basis for life as we know it. While defining the origins and meanings of various elements in previous posts, the question of what is an acid and how it got its name came to mind. The answers are below and beginning with the word 'acid' itself.

Acid, rather unsurprisingly, got its name for its taste - remember acid drops? Derived from the Latin acidus or 'sour', this is ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European ak meaning 'sharp' but also used to mean 'pointed'. When it comes to the chemical names with which we are most familiar, these are self-explanatory. For example hydrochloric simply means 'composed of chloring and hydrogen'; Sulphuric is 'of or pertaining to sulphur'; Nitric derives its name from 'nitre'; boric from 'boron'; and carbonic is derived from 'carbon dioxide'.

Formic acid is familiar to anyone who has been on the receiving end of a nettle sting - that irritant is formic acid. It is also used by ants and German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf first obtained a pure form by distilling it from red ants. The name comes from the Latin formica meaning 'ants'.

Acetic acid has been tasted by most of us, be it in pickle or splashed liberally on chips, it is commonly known as vinegar. The word comes to English from the French acetique meaning 'vinegar' and ultimately from the Latin vinum acetum or 'wine turned sour'. Incidentally 'vinegar is derived from the Latin vinum aigre with the same 'sour wine' meaning.

Oxalic is related to 'oxygen' for both first elements come from the Latin oxalis 'sharp' and ultimately from the Greek oxys 'sharp'.

Tartaric acid is found in foods such as apples, bananas, avocados, apricots and grapes and thus in wine. Its name is derived from tartar or bitartrate of potash, this from Greek tartaron, a reference to the 'tartar encrusting the sides of wine casks'. It is thought to be of Semitic origin but the exact source has yet to be identified.

Folic acid is a B vitamin, important during pregnancy, and derived from the Latin folium meaning 'leaf' as it is found in abundance in green leaves such as spinach.

Ascorbic acid is a naturally occurring antioxidant. Its name comes from Middle Latin scorbuticus or 'scurvy' as was originally a reference to Vitamin C which is an anti-scorbutic.

Citric acid is found in citrus fruits. Here 'citrus' is a Latin word referring to the citron tree, the name given to a tree with a lemon-like fruit and aromatic wood native to Africa and was the first citrus fruit available to the west.

Lactic acid is obtained from sour milk, the name meaning 'procured from milk' and ultimately derived from the Latin lac or 'milk'.

Uric acid is, as any gout sufferer will tell you, the acid in urine which crystallizes in the joint (usually of the big toe) to cause the pain. It is, of course, present in urine and also blood and came to English from the French orine. We can trace this back to a Proto-Indo-European we-r, used to mean 'water, liquid, milk' and the root of Sanskrit var 'water', Avestan var 'rain', Lithuanian jures and Old Norse ver both meaning 'sea', and Old Norse ur referring very specifically to 'drizzling rain'.

Sunday, 9 October 2016

Elemental Etymology

Having looked at the origins of the names of some elements, such as the noble gases and metals, here is a look at the some of the others of the periodic table. I have deliberately left out those having more recent and therefore quite obvious meanings - thinking of such as californium and einsteinium - and opted for those which would only be understood by those with a reasonable knowledge of Greek and/or Latin.

Boron was originally extracted from boracic acid by Sir Humphry Davy who called it boracium. Later he changed it to 'boron', taking the first syllable from the source borax and adding the suffix simply because it resembled carbon.

Bromine was discovered by the French chemist Antoine Jerard Balard and initially called 'muride' but eventually named from the Greek bromos 'stench' with the chemical suffix '-ine'.

Carbon was officially named by Lavoisier in 1787 as charbone, this from the Latin carbo 'charcoal' and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root ker meaning 'heat, fire, burn'.

Chlorine is another named by Sir Humphry Davy, the English chemist opting for the chemical suffix '-ine' preceded by the Greek khloros or 'pale green'. Schoolchildren everywhere will be delighted to learn the early name of 'dephlogisticated marine acid' lasted little more than thirty years.

Fluorine another '-ine' named by Sir Humphry Davy, who chose to show he had found it in the mineral fluorspar and an old chemistry term indicating minerals 'useful as fluxes in smelting'.

Hydrogen was isolated and named by four French scientists. From the Greek hydor meaning 'water' and French gene or 'producing', as it readily produces water when exposed to oxygen.

Iodine was another discovered and named by Sir Humphry Davy. Here he took the chemical suffix '-ine' and preceded it with the Greek ioeides 'the colour violet'. Undoubtedly both the colour and the flower have a common root in pre-Indo-European language.

Nitrogen has, once again, the French suffix gene meaning 'producing', it is derived from the Greekgen or 'giving birth to'. Named by French chemist Jena Antoine Chaptal in 1790, the first element came from the Greek nitron or 'sodium carbonate' and ultimately Egptian ntr and a word for the native soda. Note earlier nitrogen had been known as 'mephitic air' and Lavoisier called it 'azote', where 'azo' is still used as a prefix denoting the presence of nitrogen.

Oxygen again uses the suffix from the French meaning 'producing', the first syllable is Greek oxys 'sharp, acid' and which has also given us 'acrid'.

Phosphorus was named by the early 17th century, its name coming from the Greek for the morning star and literally translating as 'torchbearer'. This comes from the Greek phaos 'light' and pherein 'to carry'.

Silicon was coined by British chemist Thomas Thomson in 1817, he deriving this from silica, from which it was isolated. The term 'silica' was named from the Latin silex meaning 'flint, pebble'.

Sulphur may be the traditional preferred British spelling but, as this suggests a Greek origin, is wrong and today the US spelling of 'sulfur' is becoming increasingly popular. The term came to English from Old French soufre and ultimately from the Latin for 'to burn'.

Sunday, 2 October 2016

All That Glisters ......

Elements isolated and identified in the comparatively modern era are, most often, named quite logically. However those known to the ancients were known for very different reasons, albeit they had no concept of the idea of an element in a scientific sense. The earliest isolated elements were metals and named for what they saw and, as we shall see, they saw yhings in a rather different light.

Cadmium is a bluish-white metal discovered in 1871 by the German Friedrich Strohmeyer. It is borrowed from the Modern Latin cadmia, with the addition of the metallic suffix ‘-ium’, and itself used by the ancient naturalists for every earth and oxide they found. It comes from the Greek kadmeia meaning ‘earth’ and a name derived from the legendary founder of Boeotian Thebes ‘Cadmus’ and known as such as cadmium was first found in the area around Thebes.

Caesium is a rare alkaline metal, hence the suffix ‘-ium’, discovered and named in 1861 by scientists Bunsen and Kirchhoff. It was named from the Latin caesius meaning ‘blue-grey’ for the spectrum showing the presence of caesium is identified, and indeed was discovered, by two prominent blue lines.

Calcium and another metallic ‘-ium’ coined by Sir Humphrey Davy, this coined in 1808. He borrowed the first syllable from the Latin calx meaning ‘limestone’, this also the origin of the word ‘chalk’.

Aluminium is a an abundant metal and one which epitomises the quote from George Bernard Shaw when he said “Two nations divided by a common language”, for the name ‘aluminium’ is used on the eastern shores of the Atlantic, while on the western side the name is ‘aluminum’. The difference may be but one letter yet with the emphasis is on differing syllables it makes the two names sound very different. In Britain many find the American version difficult to accept and yet (sorry Britain) when first isolated by Sir Humphrey Davy in 1808, he did refer to it as ‘aluminum’. However four years later he changed his mind, with a little encouragement from fellow scientists, and added the ‘i’ to make it ‘aluminium’. This made sense as the suffix ‘-ium’ is used for other metallic elements and thus the British version (sorry America) makes more sense. To further complicate matters Davy’s original name was ‘alumium’. All three names come from the aluminium oxide, known by the Latin alumen, and derived from ‘alum’, itself defined as ‘a whitish mineral salt used as an astringent and a dye’. Alum comes from Old French alum and Latin alumen literally meaning ‘bitter salt’ and associated with the Greek aludoimos and thus amazingly having a common root with ‘ale’.

Barium is another metallic element known since ancient times, albeit only as it was present in the mineral barytes. Not until Sir Humphrey Davy isolated barium in 1808 was it named, although clearly this is derived from the mineral where ‘barytes’ comes from the Greek for ‘heavy spar’. The Greek barys or ‘heavy’ can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European gwere also meaning ‘heavy’ – the latter also the root of the word ‘grave’ - used as an adjective, not a noun.

Chromium isolated in 1807 by Fourcroy and Hauy it was named from the French chrome, itself from the Greek chroma meaning ‘colour’ and aptly, for the compounds are often identified by their colours.

Nickel was identified and named in 1754 by Swedish mineralogist Axel von Cronstedt, an abbreviation of Swedish kopparnickel literally meaning ‘copper-coloured ore’. The Swedes translated this from the German Kupfernickel or ‘copper demon’, so-called as its colour suggested copper yet contained none. Here the alternative name for the devil himself, Old Nick, has a common origin.

Platinum was named by the Spanish, it comes from platina referring to ‘sheet of metal’. As it was thought to resemble silver the Spaniards thought it simply inferior silver, hence the name.

Magnesium here the metallic suffix ‘-ium’ follows the ‘magnesia’, itself the Greek referring to the ‘loadstone’. Here it gets its name from Magnesia, a region of Thessaly inhabited by the Magnetes people whose name has never been explained. What we do know is the metal shares an etymology with ‘magnet’.

Lead comes from the Germanic loudhorn and related to Lot meaning ‘weight’. Earlier usage is unclear, although it seems likely to have referred to ‘weight’ or ‘density’ in some respect.

Tin is from the Proto-Germanic tinom but here the trail ceases and this word is unknown outside the Germanic family. Early references, such as Pliny’s plumbum album or ‘white lead’, are due to the mistaken belief tin was nothing more than silver tainted with lead.

Zinc has been known for millennia, the name derived from the Germanic zint ‘prong, point’ and referring to the pointed shape of the crystals after smelting. Here we can trace the word back to Proto-Indo-European denk meaning ‘to bite’

Mercury is famously the fluid metal, also one of the seven metals known to the ancients as the bodies terrestrial and linked to astrology and alchemy. The Greek name of hydrargyros means ‘liquid silver’ and has also given us the chemical symbol Hg.

Gold has been known since prehistory, the term coming to English from Proto-Germanic ghl-to and derived from the Proto-Indo-European ghel ‘to shine’ – the same root as ‘glass’.

Silver, like gold, has been known since prehistory and can be traced through Germanic languages to somewhere around Asia Minor where Akkadian sarpu meant ‘silver’, coming from sarapu ‘to refine, smelt’.

Copper would have been one of the earliest mined metals and, as a word, it comes to English from the Proto-Germanic kupar. Ultimately this can be traced to the Latin cuprum, itself from Greek Kyprios meaning ‘Cyprus’ as it had been originally mined on that island. Note the original Latin for ‘copper’ had been aes but this was soon used for the alloy with tin ‘bronze’, eventually coming to English as ‘ore’.

Iron is another of ancient origins, coming to English through Celtic isarnon and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European isero meaning ‘powerful’ and also used in the sense of ‘holy’.