Grime, Christ, and ghee share the same Indo-European root! The word “grimace” is also cognate, coming from French “grimace”, from Frankish *grima (mask), from the Proto-Germanic *grīmô. Greek Khristos is a calque of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (māšīaḥ), also meaning “anointed”. Māšīaḥ was also borrowed into Greek and Latin, eventually reaching English as the word “messiah”. […]
Languages
Surprising Doublets: Cow, Beef, and Bovine
Yet another surprising etymology graphic:“Cow” and “beef” are related words.After the Norman invasion of England in 1066, the country came under the rule of a Norman French speaking nobility.This lead to a situation where the live animals were handled by Middle English speakers, while the cooked animal was eaten by theirNormal French speaking lords.The result: […]
Etymological Tree of Sker
I started making an image showing how “skirt” and “shirt” are from the same origin, but got a bit carried away with all the other words also related. So here are 23 English words all from the Proto-Indo-European word “*(s)ker-” (‘to cut’). As a general rule: if a PIE word started with “sk”, and it […]
English has two unrelated -ing suffixes
Surprising etymology fact:The “-ing” suffix in phrases like “I like running” is etymological unrelated to the “-ing” suffix in phrases like “I am running”.“-ing” is actuall two unrelated suffixes in English, spelled the same. Quick grammar background:Gerunds are nouns that are made from verbs, formed by adding “-ing”, e.g. in sentences like “Reading is fun”, […]
Surprising Doublets: Hound-Canine and Wolf-Lupine
“Hound” is distantly related to “canine”, and “wolf” is similarly related to “lupus”. This makes these words two pairs of doublets. I enjoy the symmetry of this one, with the scientific species name of the grey wolf (which includes dogs), “Canis lupus”, being from the same origins as hound+wolf in English respectively. Another word related […]
British and Irish words for British and Irish nations
Infographics mapping out the various origins and etymologies of the names of seven British and Irish nations in the seven main languages of those nations. Before we get into the etymology, you may want to make sure you’re familiar with what all these words actually refer to. Here’s my post about how to use these […]
Dyēus Phter: The Original Sky-Father
The Greek, Roman, Irish, Slavic, Baltic, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, and Hindu sky-father gods are (probably) all connected, and descended from an ancient sky-father god worshipped 6000 years ago. Okay, maybe “The Original Sky-Father” is a bit of an overstatement. Patriarchal gods of the sky are found in religions all over the world, and humans have probably […]
Reborrowings
Words that were borrowed, and then returned What we call “borrowed words” aren’t really borrowed. When English took the Japanese word “tsunami”, there was no intention to return it. They’re more like “stolen words”. Actually, since the original language keeps them, they might better be labelled “pirated words”. Anyway… in a few cases, the words […]
The difference between Britain, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, and the British Isles
…and how to talk about them without offending people The history of Britain and Ireland is long, complicated and horribly messy, and as a result, lots of people get the words that describe the region mixed up. As well as being inaccurate, misusing these words can cause a lot of offence, so it’s important to […]
Who Brings Presents in Different British regions?
I’ve been getting a lot of confused comments about this post, especially from non-Brits, so I though I should clear it up.Lets start at the bottom and work our way up: Old Nick Yes, in western Cornwall, all gifts are brought by Satan, as a result of a typo in a royal charter in 1338. […]